(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!.)
I’m just got back from the 2023 St. Louis Pen Show (their second one since the pandemic) and have finally recovered enough to gather my thoughts. I spent a lot of time describing last year’s show so that would be a good place to start since I will be doing some comparisons in this recap.
The show was held at the same location as last year, the Sheraton Westport Chalet St. Louis hotel. I love walking down the hallway with all the large displays greeting you as you make your way to the registration desk!
Welcome to the St. Louis Pen Show!
Like last year, Michael and the Dromgoole’s spread were the first things you’d see at the show - lots of pens, stationery and an ink wall too!
The perfect rubber chicken for the one and only Ana Reinart, who was working the Dromgoole’s ink wall.
Opposite the Dromgoole’s tables were Steve and Diane Curnow of Curnow Bookbinding and Leather with their lovely array of notebooks, inserts and leather covers!
I like that there was a map on display so folks could look up where the different vendors were located.
This was a view of the main ballroom on Friday when it was fairly busy.
I don’t have attendance numbers from last year or this year but it felt significantly slower this year. Most of the vendors I spoke with felt the same way. Slow days are much harder on vendors than busy days because the hours just drag on and it just drains a lot of the energy. There were maybe a few more folks on Saturday but it wasn’t enough for some vendors, who decided to pack it up and not return on Sunday.
I also don’t have vendor or table numbers, though this year’s website listed 93 vendors (compared to around 100 last year). I know that there were some new vendors this year but I had also heard that a number of folks did not return after they had a disappointing show last year.
The pandemic has seen a lot of new folks entering this hobby, which is great for making new pen friends, but also essential for a hobby’s growth and continued existence. It feels like I’ve encountered a lot more newer folks at this show than any other show in the past two years. More than once (and at different tables), I heard “I don’t have any fountain pens” or “how do I get ink in the pen?” It’s not a bad thing to have a lot of newbies, but it often means that vendors spend a lot more time and energy explaining their products (or just pens in general). Budgets are often lower since they are still discovering this rabbit hole. So you end up with a lot of vendors competing for fewer dollars (on average) from fewer attendees.
The vendors that did the best were the ones who catered more to this newer crowd. Paper, inks and pens $50-100 were the items that seemed to sell the most. Though I did hear that at least one customer bought a Namiki Emperor from Jimmy Dolive (Jimmy strikes again!), that was definitely not the norm.
Last year the show had two nib workers, which was about right. This year, there were 5. Richard Binder, the Kennedys of Indy-Pen-Dance and Gena Salorino of Custom Nib Studio came this year, in addition to returning nib folks Kirk Speer and Josh Lax. I think 2 nib workers is more than enough for this show, not only because of its lower attendance, but the relative newness of its audience also means that they often aren’t aware of what a nib worker does, let alone want to spend the money on getting a pen tuned or ground.
Gena Salorino working their magic.
What the show continues to have is variety - plenty of modern and vintage vendors in all price brackets.
Love seeing Greg Hardy’s smiling face alongside (literally) the “Crawdaddy” pen he made just for this pen show!
Danny Fudge of The Write Pen is a well-known and well-respected fixer/restorer of pens!
If you need supplies for restoring/fixing or just cleaning/maintaining your pens, Indy-Pen-Dance can help!
Akhila and Nirmal Sheth of Smruti Pens came to the STL show for the first time!
I love that they have vendors who sell other things besides “pens & inks” and some vendors that don’t sell anything at all (like the calligraphy guild or the STL meetup group)!
This father-daughter duo of Lincoln’s Leathers makes notebooks and other items out of Michigan!
Keith McCleary and his family brought all their 3D-printed goods, as well as stickers and other fun stuff to the show!
Look at these cool creations from War Pony Forge!
Slapme? No,Slap U! The St Louis Area Pen Users (SLAPU) has regular meetups named St Louis Area Pen Meet & Eat (SLAPME)! I’m pretty sure no actual slapping happens, but don’t quote me on that, lol! Just follow the St. Louis Pen Show IG to find out about the next meetup.
There were two of these ink testing stations in the middle of the ballroom - perfect for ink play while taking a rest break.
Members of the St. Louis Guild of Calligraphers were present to write your name in calligraphy for free and to talk about all things calligraphy!
If we’re going to talk calligraphy, then you have to mention the master penman, Michael Sull, who was busy making and embellishing his gorgeous calligraphy prints!
Sitting next to Mr. Sull was a tray full of old letterpress “stamps”. For free. These were used to print handwriting exemplars for cursive books. You neve know what treasures you’ll find at a pen show!
There were a good number of classes/seminars this year, but not quite as many as last year, which was fine given the lighter crowds at the show this weekend. Still, the variety of classes was great - “Your Name - Your Signature”, Back to Basics Bullet Journaling, Celtic Knots, as well as American Cursive Handwriting, Vintage Pen Buying for Beginners, and more – there really was a wide range of classes/seminars to choose from.
I barely made it in time for the Journaling Social on Friday afternoon and there were still plenty of people gathering, chatting and working on their journals!
Look at these gorgeous Namikis at the Pilot USA table!
On the other end of the spectrum, look at this “bargain” of a pen! I love it when vendors have a sense of humor!
I love this Nahvalur Voyage: Pride 2023 Pen, with a portion of proceeds being donated to It Gets Better Project!
This is the blackest black ink ever made by Platinum - Chou-Kuro. Apparently, it is 43% darker than Platinum Carbon black!
Luxury Brands of America’s exclusive Retro 51 is not only a good looking pen, but proceeds also benefit the Rainforest Trust!
As always, I had a good time after hours at the show. The bar staff was painfully slow on Thursday afternoon/evening, and didn’t pick up until Brian the bartender showed up with his amazing energy and great service on Friday. I heard that the show organizers asked the hotel to keep the bar open late, which they did on Friday and Saturday nights (yay!). Security did come by around 10pm on Sunday to (very nicely) ask us to vacate the lobby because it was past their quiet hours.
Discovered that the Schnickelfritz Bavarian style Weissbier is really tasty - I may have had a few this weekend!!
A few of the die-hards at 1:45am Sunday morning!
Last year I said “it is a well-run show that might need to scale back on the vendors/tables. There is such a thing as “too big” when it comes to pen shows, especially if you don’t have the attendee numbers (and resulting sales dollars) to support it” and sadly, that is even more true this year. This is already a very well-run show, so there isn’t much to improve on from that perspective. There are great shows that are much smaller than STL (Colorado comes to mind, but I’ve also heard great things about Orlando and Arkansas), so I hope that they consider pulling back the number of vendors they ask to come to this show. This way, the vendors can have a successful show, which in turn, brings more attendees to the show.
Clockwise from the left: matte blue Platinum Curidas (Luxury Brands), Colorverse Indigo Blue (Smruti Pens), 2023 St. Louis Pen Show ink Missourah Crawdad by KWZ, Rainforest Retro 51 and Endless notebook clip (LBA), washi tape and New Pen Day stamp from InkyConverters, and STL notebook inserts (Curnow Bookbinding), all atop the Col-o-ring Folio (Well-Appointed Desk). Not pictured: a pen tuned by Gena Salorino and two of the letterpress stamps (which need to be thoroughly cleaned before I handle them again).
I was fairly restrained at this show since DC and SF are right around the corner. I spent most of the time at the show spending time with pen friends, old and new, which is the best part of any pen show. Until DC, stay safe and stay inky!
