Read my Clayart digest this morning and it seems that there is so little information being shared on peoples experience at NCECA this year. Only two attendees had anything to say and that was only after someone remarked about the absence of information and asked for some members to please share their experiences. Even then, only two people in this group with over 3,000 members, replied.
In years past there was an abundance of shared photos on Flicker, as well as video clips and enthusiastic run downs of peoples NCECA experience; but this year seems to be a very different story.
With increased costs of the event, travel, hotel accommodations and costs of eating out, attendance was way down. Even sellers cut back on the number of booths. Someone mentioned that many schools are no longer funding their instructors attendance at these events. If that trend continues it doesn't bode well for the future.
In my 40 or so years in clay I've never attended NCECA, mainly because it's my time of year to tend to my seedlings and do spring garden work; and the cost and time away from home, family, studio, just never seemed to make attendance a priority; but I have to admit that I always enjoyed feedback from the returning attendees who were always so generous in sharing their experiences.
Maybe some news and photos may be forthcoming in a couple of days. It will be interesting to see what if any changes those in charge of NCECA may institute in the next few years. Perhaps they could start streaming some of the lectures, and demos for a fee. Now that is something I would be happy to pay for an watch at home.
After rain all morning, the sun has now appeared; and thunder storms with possible hail are forecast for this afternoon. My gardening chores were indoors this morning, other than moving a lot of leek seedlings outdoors, bringing other trays of more vulnerable vegetable seedlings back indoors and making a couple of trips to my outdoor potting bench to get some potting soil so I could transplant a bunch of tomato and pepper seedlings.
It's an early, wood fired pizza night at the Perry Horseshoe Falls Ranch tonight, with our son manning the pizza oven, so I get another night out of kitchen duty. With the bad weather coming in, Jim and I may eat and run, since sitting under an out door pavilion in 50 degree weather, in the middle of wind and thunderstorms may not be the best thing for this body, which is just getting over an upper respiratory infection. I will bring my appetite and a heavy, hooded jacket and keep my fingers crossed for better weather than is forecast.
In years past there was an abundance of shared photos on Flicker, as well as video clips and enthusiastic run downs of peoples NCECA experience; but this year seems to be a very different story.
With increased costs of the event, travel, hotel accommodations and costs of eating out, attendance was way down. Even sellers cut back on the number of booths. Someone mentioned that many schools are no longer funding their instructors attendance at these events. If that trend continues it doesn't bode well for the future.
In my 40 or so years in clay I've never attended NCECA, mainly because it's my time of year to tend to my seedlings and do spring garden work; and the cost and time away from home, family, studio, just never seemed to make attendance a priority; but I have to admit that I always enjoyed feedback from the returning attendees who were always so generous in sharing their experiences.
Maybe some news and photos may be forthcoming in a couple of days. It will be interesting to see what if any changes those in charge of NCECA may institute in the next few years. Perhaps they could start streaming some of the lectures, and demos for a fee. Now that is something I would be happy to pay for an watch at home.
After rain all morning, the sun has now appeared; and thunder storms with possible hail are forecast for this afternoon. My gardening chores were indoors this morning, other than moving a lot of leek seedlings outdoors, bringing other trays of more vulnerable vegetable seedlings back indoors and making a couple of trips to my outdoor potting bench to get some potting soil so I could transplant a bunch of tomato and pepper seedlings.
It's an early, wood fired pizza night at the Perry Horseshoe Falls Ranch tonight, with our son manning the pizza oven, so I get another night out of kitchen duty. With the bad weather coming in, Jim and I may eat and run, since sitting under an out door pavilion in 50 degree weather, in the middle of wind and thunderstorms may not be the best thing for this body, which is just getting over an upper respiratory infection. I will bring my appetite and a heavy, hooded jacket and keep my fingers crossed for better weather than is forecast.
I have noticed the same about the pottery conference in Asheboro NC, no one posts photos or thoughts anymore, of course maybe it's on Facebook and like everything else, I am just missing it all :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd there are so few pottery blogs now, not a lot of reading like there used to be.... Sigh
I heard attendance was way up by like 1000!!! So weird. And there was a ton of posting DURING and right after on Instagram and Facebook... And there is a blog with stuff... I would check those out... Just a thought. ;)
ReplyDeleteThat is weird Judi and contrary to what Mel, the moderator of Clayart said. He also said that there were only about 50% of the usual vendors this year and those who were there, who in the past would have two to three booths, were down to one this year. Another poster thought that it being held in Wisconsin this time of year may have been a reason to less attendance. I do Facebook but didn't see any of those messages. Instagram is still something I have yet to figure out other than posting one of my own photos a couple of times. Facebook now edits messages we all get, so unless I do a search with specific names, those messages never come through. I also haven't seem much on the blogs I have on my roll either. I did find a slide show video on you tube this morning and put that on my blog. The photo savings sites as of yesterday morning were also lacking NCECA 2014 posts from attendees. I'll check that out again today. In any case, I was happy with the you tube video I found this morning.
ReplyDelete