5 things you didn't know about our bead shows

In honor of our “on the road” season, starting today in Houston and going till some time in November…

Russ the Bead, perched high atop the Rings & Things bead truck

5 things you didn’t know about Rings & Things’ BeadTour:

• “Our trunk shows grew out of doing a hotel room show nearby a trade show. In that case it was an order-only glass or ceramic craft show. We couldn’t sell any stock and had lots of one of a kind strands that sold best at delivery shows. We had a booth at the show and invited our customers to walk a block to the hotel and see our delivery goods there. It worked. [General manager] Kim said “Ah HAH!” and the R&T trunk shows were born.” — our owner Russ
• Our crew packed up one show & immediately left town to avoid AM rush hour next day in another city. But busy small-town streets ate up their head start… Then, at our hotel, no one could find any of the boxes of stock that we’d had shipped to us. We spent an hour and a half tracking the shipment, watching video surveillance tapes and finally, finding them in the restaurant storage. One box (of 16 boxes) was marked “Plated Chain” so the hotel had put it all with Plates and China in the kitchen!! Our general manager Kim was disappointed that our crew’s lunch was not served on “plated chain.”
  (We maintain a whole web page of more funny things that’ve happened at our shows!)
• We’ve done about 600 shows in dozens of cities in 36 states, selling [secret number deleted 🙂 ] tons of beads every year.
• Our bead shows are a great way to personally meet a bunch of the Rings & Things people you deal with by phone, email, and Internet. So you can come say hi and pick our brains about nearly any subject!
• If you really really look, you might see Russ the Bead (above) at our shows!

Have a favorite “R&T” bead show story? Any questions about our shows? Comment below…and be automatically entered in our drawing!

March news: New monthly drawing, right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it works:
* You enter by leaving comments. Comment on any March post(s).
* At the end of March, I’ll randomly draw 2 winners of surprise goodie packs! …So read the blog regularly to see if you won!