(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)
This is my 4th recap of the Baltimore Pen Show (BWI) since writing for The Pen Addict and it is going to sound a lot like the other three before. Here’s last year’s recap so you can compare. I have said that this is my second favorite show (after SF, of course), but there were some differences this year that has me questioning if that’s still the case.
Two of the friendly volunteers that greeted you at the registration desk.
This was also my fourth time working at the Franklin-Christoph table at BWI, at the same location we’ve been, but this year we had a special guest! A A Vacharat, the artist behind several of Franklin-Christoph’s hand-painted pens, was promoting her upcoming book.
A A Vacharat with her F-C creations as well as her book!
This Moth Saw Brightness releases at the end of May 2025, so pre-order now! It is pictured with a Franklin-Christoph Model 66 which she has painted with artwork from the cover.
I enjoyed watching her paint some converters during the show.
View from behind the Franklin-Christoph table at 11:20 am (20 minutes after public entry and an hour 20 after VIP entry). Thankfully it picked up around noon - the main entrance is diagonally at the complete opposite side of the ballroom from us, so it took a while for folks to make their way over.
This is a great show for both newer and veteran pen fanatics alike. Like with other recent shows, there are more folks coming to shows who are newer to the hobby and were attending their first show. Aside from the wide variety of pens, both modern and vintage, there’s also a lot of inks, paper, cards, ephemeral, even ceramics and 3-D printed items and my favorite, chocolate!
Baltimore locals Evan and Julian Rosenberg of Penquisition have so many fun and colorful pen accessories, pen cases from Rickshaw and more!
Super digging these fun 3D-printed fidget spinners that were at their table too!
It isn’t a Baltimore Pen Show if Jinji isn’t there with their chocolates!
In addition to pens, our table neighbors, The Write Stuff LLC, also had fun accessories at their tables, like these cute pins!
...and these stickers too!
I love all these pen trays and accessories from Seypen! He brought his urushi pens too but was still setting up when I snapped this picture.
It’s been a couple years since Tyler from Organics Studiohas been to the show and from the looks of it, he’s getting ready to get back into the ink game again.
Zach (right) and Amy Skogsberg of Skogsy Pens were in the side ballroom. It was good to spend a little quality time chatting with them this weekend! True story, Zach is Amy’s worst client - she is a bookkeeper and she’s always after Zach to turn in his paperwork, but he’s too busy making awesome pens!
*The Friday view of the side room from the Skogsy table looking “back” towards the other side. *
Allie Ozga of alliinthealley is a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art and makes these incredible pieces out of wild clay that she dug from her backyard!
Allie (right) shared a table with Samantha Fouche who had all of these AMAZING 3D-printed dragons, wyverns, squids, etc.! I rushed to this table after an F-C customer showed me theirs!
Congrats to Lauren Elliott on the 5th anniversary of Lucky Star Pens!!
Special editions of engraved and painted Franklin-Christophs for Lucky Star’s anniversary!
Tom Forsythe of Sugar Turtle Studio brought his parents to the show. (Turtle Mom and Turtle Dad were busy helping customers so they weren’t in this picture.)
Last year, there were 7 nib workers at the show and this year, it was back down to 5 (6, if you include F-C’s in-house nib specialist, Audrey Matteson). Damien and Josh were in the front hallway, while Gena, Linda and Kirk were in the main ballroom:
- Damien Alomar of All in the Nib
- Linda Kennedy of Indy-Pen-Dance
- Joshua Lax of JJ Lax Pen Co
- Gena Salorino of Custom Nib Studio
- Kirk Speer of Pen Realm
Josh Lax working that nib grinder magic.
Linda (left) and Mike Kennedy of Indy-Pen-Dance. Linda is working on nibs while Mike focuses on repairs and restorations.
It’s been a while that the weather wasn’t an issue for any of the days, but as in years past, it was difficult for folks to find parking. I had heard that the hotel rents out spaces for airport parking, which is an issue especially for Friday and Saturday.
An overcast and slightly chilly Saturday morning combined with an already full parking lot made it difficult for some attendees to get an early start.
Francisco Lopez of Hinze Pens is talking through the different models with a customer.
Not gonna lie, this was one of the things I absolutely had to see at the show - the new Benu Pixie! Had to ask for Instagram’s help to pick one cuz they were all so cute!
I don’t think it gets any cooler (or hotter) than this Benu Euphoria Glasog Dragon pen atop this awesome dragon by adopt_a_pals!
It is always interesting to talk with other vendors to see what they thought of at day’s end. Most of the vendors did “alright” on Friday, and some had slightly better Saturday than others, and some had worse Saturdays. This show is usually a “Saturday show”, in that most vendors do really well on Saturdays as opposed to Friday or Sunday, but I’m not sure that was the case this time around. The attendance on all three days, but especially on Saturday, was noticeably lower than in years past. Sunday was a bit of a surprise for most everyone, as it felt a little busier than the typical Sunday slowness. I didn’t speak to a single customer, other than to say “hi, how are you?” until almost 2 hours into Sunday. We ended up having a decent sales day on Sunday, but that was due to some strong sales from a few regulars.
There are tables set up at the end of the hallway (after the ballroom entrance) for folks to take a break, or play with some new purchases, or hang out with friends.
Here’s the view of the hallway from the tables’ point of view. On the right are Cary Yeager and Chris Henline from Truphae.
You can see more people in the ballroom on Saturday, but still not as many on our end of the room.
I got a selfie with the President! The President of Fahrney’s, Drew Brown, that is! Wish I could have attended the Sunday Q&A session with him and Jeff Velker (CEO of Writeside Holdings, which owns Retro 51 and now Fahrney’s).
10 a.m. Sunday morning in the side room and no one was rushing to get to their tables (as vendors or attendees).
The slower Sunday pace gave me extra time to spend at vendor tables.
Larry Dromgoole and Bill Pearcy (from Pilot USA) getting ready for Sunday. It was good to see Larry doing well after an accident last month. Keep up the healing, Larry!
I love the sense of humor at Lincoln’s Leather, but it’s true, they absolutely will give you cool things if you give them money!
Like these awesome water bottles! They also had their collection of leather goods as well as pens, but this is my kryptonite!
*I mean, who can resist water bottles with engraved fountain pen designs?!? *
Ben Stewart of Mayfair Pen Company was enjoying himself as a first time vendor at BWI.
Random thoughts:
Free Airport/Hotel Shuttle - Runs for a bulk of the day and night. Super convenient, fast and free. And you can keep tabs on the shuttle in the Marriott app.
Book hotel early - The hotel sells out fast, so book your room early next year. The hotel was booked months in advance!
Economic/political uncertainty/instability - I heard that online ticket sales were higher than past years, but it was less of a crowd and in general, they spent less. Several attendees mentioned to me that they were newly unemployed, or worried that they would lose their jobs, while others mentioned the stock market/economic volatility. I think that this uncertainty is definitely affecting this hobby. Customers were doing a lot more laps before making their purchases, and I definitely heard more comments about being responsible and buying fewer pens or buying lower priced items (like inks or accessories) instead. I absolutely think we should be spending responsibly whether at a pen show or not, but this might have been the first show in a while where this overall feeling of uncertainty was hanging over everyone like a cloud.
Parking lot filled up - Despite the lower attendance, people still had a hard time finding parking. If you can, carpool. If you can’t, come early and prepare to park at other hotel lots nearby. If you’re staying at the hotel, it might be worth getting a Lyft/Uber to dinner so you can keep your parking spot.
Lots of classes/seminars/events - I love that this show has classes and seminars though it seemed a little lighter than last year. For example, Lisa Vanness did not attend and therefore didn’t teach her classes/seminars, and Nik Pang didn’t teach either of his calligraphy classes, even though he did attend the show. There were still seminars and classes including Creative Journaling (by Tom Forsythe of Sugar Turtle Studio), Fountain Pens 101 (Pen Boutique), and Basics of Vintage Pen Collecting (David Silber). I also taught my handwriting improvement class on Friday and Saturday. Josh Lax continues to host a “Pen Shows After Dark: Vintage edition” to spread the love of vintage pens, and on Saturday night, Cary Yeager hosted the Pen Shows After Dark raffle and giveaway.
Too little, too late:
- Emails - Last year, I commented on the deluge of emails in the weeks and days leading up to and throughout the show weekend. This year, it was the complete opposite. From August 2024 to March 5, I got a total of 4 emails, compared to at least 12 emails for BWIPS 2024. People aren’t going to the show if they don’t know that it’s coming up.
- Website updates need to be done earlier and more often - This is something that plagues many pen shows, so it’s not specific to this show. Aside from the list of vendors not being updated early/often enough, vendors are listed randomly, making it hard to find out if your favorite vendors are attending. It also doesn’t include any contact information or links. Last year, I said that they listed brands separately from vendors, and this year, they have noted the distributors as well as the brands they represent, so yay, that’s an improvement. That said, they still listed vendors who had said they weren’t attending the show. There’s more about the website, which I’ll get to shortly…
- What Social Media? - The first Instagram post for BWIPS 2025 was on March 4, two days before the show. There were a total of 7 posts from March 4 to 7; 5 of them were about classes/seminars, 1 about Pen Shows After Dark, and 1 showing the hallway and side ballroom. I don’t know if they posted stories in the months/weeks prior to the show (I kind of doubt it), but there were zero posts highlighting any of the vendors/distributors who were coming to the show. I didn’t see anything on Facebook either. It’s hard to say how much impact this had on attendance, but social media helps get everyone excited for the show, and makes vendors feel appreciated and that they are getting publicity from the show. Posts can also get shared by vendors and attendees, which greatly extends their 1,600+ follower reach. Can’t share what isn’t posted though (sad trombone).
- Classes/Seminars finalized too late - I won’t go into the details but TLDR: as of the CA Pen Show, I didn’t know if I was teaching a class because the show website didn’t have the schedule of (any) classes. While at the airport headed to CAPS, I called Bert to find out, but he didn’t know the status since he delegated that task. It wasn’t until Monday Feb 24, less than 2 weeks before the show, that the class schedule was posted. Leading up to this, people asked me if I was teaching, and if so, when, and until Feb 24, my answer was “I think/hope so” and “I have no idea”.
Where/How to sign up? - The website had multiple links to classes/seminars, but only one of them had a way for you to sign up. If you clicked on Schedule of Seminars, Workshops, Events BWIPS 2025, you’d see a list of the classes, etc., but no way to actually register for any of them. Clicking on the list only shows you the graphic of the class listing. There were two of these links in the navigation, but nothing in the class listing page directing you to read more about the classes or to signing up. You would have had to go to Schedule of Events BWIPS 2025 (not to be confused with the similar sounding link) to see a partial overview of the classes. I should also add that this link isn’t in the top menu, but on the second menu below the BWI banner, and is practically impossible to see on a mobile browser. Several folks told me they didn’t register because they couldn’t find any way to do so. Even if you somehow managed to find the course description and registration link, the workflow is pretty kludgey (I got this feedback from quite a few folks, as well as from other instructors who heard the same).
On a mobile device, there are two menus, which aren’t super obvious.
This is the top drop down menu, and you’ll see the Schedule of Seminars link.
If you clicked on the above link, you get this page that has an image of the classes, but no links to take you to those classes.
This is the bottom drop down menu - notice that there are two listings for the schedule.
If you click on the Schedule of Events, then you’ll see the listing of the classes by day and also individually.
- Short notice + navigation/signup challenges + no social media until 3 days prior = low registrations - There was room for 30 students per class and as of Wednesday morning, only 13 and 10 people sign up for Friday/Saturday, respectively. Now, I’m not so full of myself that I expected to sell out, but given the short notice coupled with the challenging navigation, there was no way it could have. Thankfully, more people ended up registering, not just for my class but for others.
Despite the challenges, I had an amazing time teaching classes on Friday and Saturday! (Smiley faces to cover the kids that were in my classes!)
Still deciding if I like round tables vs lecture style layout as they both have their pros/cons. We had fun either way!
- Pen show flow - I do not envy show organizers who have to figure out where to put vendors, especially for a show that has continued to grow, like BWIPS and CAPS. Both shows had a similar layout, where there are vendors in the hallways outside of the ballroom, and the ballroom doors are locked (on the outside) until you go all the way down 2 hallways. This “forces” attendees to walk by all of the vendors in the hallways, instead of immediately bypassing them at the start. At CAPS, the restricted access also meant limited airflow, while boiled those of us inside. And at BWIPS, those of us on the “far side” of the ballroom saw fewer people, unless they passed us to exit the ballroom. I don’t have an answer to this dilemma, other than to mention that it’s in your best interest, as an attendee, to check out all the rooms, aisles, and hallways as you may be missing some cool stuff.
- Unrelated drama - Last but not least, several folks (including me) got to witness an unpleasant interaction between a non-pen show person and the bartender on Thursday night. He was yelling, swearing, and making racist and inappropriate comments to the bartender, who was calm and respectful throughout the entire interaction. TLDR, the man caused a lot of ruckus, security was called and eventually, so was the police who came and arrested him. Why am I bringing this up? Because crazy stuff happens at pen shows sometimes, so be careful. But also because there were pen friends who came over to me and others to encourage us to get out of there or head to our rooms because the guy was getting louder and being obnoxious and belligerent. It warmed my heart to know that we’re keeping an eye out for one another. Alright, enough of that.
One of the reasons this is one of my favorite shows is because of the opportunities for hanging out, penabling and socializing. There are lots of tables and chairs in the bar area, as well as couches in the lobby and more couches and tables in the “side area” around the corner/behind the bar.
People were crammed in the side area for Saturday’s Pen Show After Dark with host, Cary Yeager, aka Mr. Fountain Pen Day (right), along with Adam Lolatchy (left).
Adam helped Cary, who picked out the raffle numbers (which were nowhere near my numbers, lol.)
Lots of folks gathered at the tall table to play with pens and check out each others stuff.
Hanging out at the bar, sitting on the floor, we don’t care, we just wanna chat with friends!
Scott Hammer (black hat, looking at the camera) has an amazing pen collection and brought a few of his beauties. He’s not the only pen person in the lobby on a Saturday night!
Fitz, the bartender, is always professional, but also silly and full of personality. Such a pleasure to see him at this show!
So, despite the lower attendance and lower sales from many of the vendors I spoke with, the uncertainty around the economy, especially locally, which affected the overall mood of the show, along with my less-than-smooth experience on the teaching end at this show, I still had a great time at this show. I got to see friends I hadn’t seen in months, or years in some cases, I got to make new friends, and the slower pace allowed me to have more in-depth conversations with both customers and vendors. And the attendees I spoke with also had a great time and from the looks of it, great hauls too! Given some of the hiccups with this show, as well as how well the CA Pen Show went this year, I think that CAPS may now be my second favorite show with BWIPS on its heels. Considering there are still more shows ahead this year, who knows what lies ahead - I can’t wait to find out!
Clockwise from top left: Montegrappa Armonia, Schon Dsgn Monoc (in the vial), 3D-printed dragon-like creature from adopt-a-pals, engraved water bottle from Lincoln Leathers (they engraved @AllTheHobbies at the bottom too), Benu Pixie in Aurora Gold, Esterbrook Coffee Cup, Retro 51 Sprinkle Ops fountain pen, 4 Organics Studio inks, Colorverse 2025 Blue Green Snake and Stellaris (Lucky Star Pens collab). Not pictured are the pens I had tuned by Gena Salorino and the already-eaten chocolates from Jinji Chocolate.
What a great weekend! It’s no wonder that this is still one of my favorite shows. I can’t wait to come back next year! Until the next shows (which will be in May at the Chicago Pen Show and Pen Paper Palooza in Southern California), stay safe and stay inky!
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