Anyone on this group going to the Stitching Festival in Hershey at the end of the month?
I know their advertising this year was nil and the classes were only listed online, but hopefully folks will attend.
The class schedule is miniscule compared to previous years and not much of a selection, but it's Hershey and it should be fun.
The merchandise mart is probably going to be smaller this year as well, as the listing of exhibitors is much smaller than in the past.
My buddies and I are going and we're going to have a blast. We are thinking that this may be the last of the Stitching Festivals because of their limited classes, no printed class book, less exhibitors, and quite frankly an apparent lack of enthusiasm from the festival itself. Phone calls were never returned, it took weeks to get an email response, just very little enthusiasm from the festival itself.
I know last year I heard they were not making money and I figured that was why there was only one festival this year; although, last year one of the directors indicated they were in negotiations with another city and were planning on two festivals.
If they don't make money, they can't stay in business. What a loss for us stitchers.
So, anyone out there interested in a fun weekend in Hershey, check out the festival website
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and plan your weekend. If we all participate and make it a success, perhaps they will consider continuing the festival.Let's spread the word!!!!!! I, for one, would love to see it continue because I moved this past spring and I am now two, yes, two hours from the nearest needlework shop! It's been a big adjustment for me, because I had a wonderful needlepoint shop in my town, as well as a Michaels. Now, Wal-Mart is 25 minutes away and they have pretty much nothing; Michaels is 45 minutes away and a trip has to be planned. So, I for one am taking my plastic and cash and heading to Hershey with an aim to enhance my stash!!!
No, affiliation with the festival other than attending every year it's been in existence and my fifth year at Hershey.
Be sure you tell them that over the course of the weekend. You should be talking to staff at least at Registration, and hopefully when you attend the banquets you can catch their ear for a moment.
If they've hired new staff, the new staff may not be aware how much this means to us, and treating it like an extra burden (just as one of my friends complains about having to give up his weekends to do trade shows). If they're still using old staff, the old staff may be burned out on the amount of work required to do this year after year (I've organized things on that scale, and you really do start planning for next year's event the morning after this year's ends).
Remind them that a lot of LNSs are closing down and for some people, this is the only time during the year that they have to see and fondle. That there are groups of friends who use CATS as an excuse to come from all parts of the country and abroad to have a Girls Weekend Out.
I will point out that when HOXS was in Northern California, it was well-attended. Someone had the brilliant idea to do it in Southern California, and attendance fell off greatly. I could've told them that; up this end, you get people from the damp northwest who spend a lot of time indoors because it's cold and/or raining. At that end of the state, a lot of people spend all their time outdoors and at the beach, and needlework is not quite as popular.
It was a little too far to travel for a lot of the older folks who used to come when it was here, and a lot of people don't want to deal with SoCal traffic, and, let's face it, Riverside is not exactly a tourist spot, so those who used to combine their festival with a family vacation had very little to offer the husband and kids while Mommy went to class.
So, when HOXS folds and CATS takes over, do they come back where attendance was good? No. They stuck with Riverside, and then complained that they couldn't continue a west coast show because nobody came. Duh.
First, I would like to say that the intent of my first post was not to dredge up the whole "if they had just kept a festival in Nor Cal it would have survived" attitude, but to let folks know that there is only one CATS festival this year and it is in Hershey.
Now, the following is my opinion and my opinion only, but I just feel that I have to respond to the post about the demise of the California festival.
It is true to a point that CATS in So Cal wasn't well attended, but they did have a festival in Santa Clara for a couple of years and it was not very well attended.
Now, I know that a lot of folks from the San Jose and San Francisco areas attended Spirit and Heart when they were in Sacramento, because at that time I lived in the Bay area and attended all of the ones in Sacramento.
There were also quite a few folks that came to Sacramento from So Cal and there are quite a few needlework shops in So Cal, so I don't think saying that "at that end of the state...needlework is not quite as popular" is quite accurate.
Maybe it was that the So Cal folks were willing to go to Sacramento, but the Nor Cal folks were not willing to go to So Cal.
To say that it was "a little too far to travel for a lot of the older folks who used to come..." makes it sound like there are no "older folks" in So Cal that stitch. I don't think that would be accurate either.
And, there's no traffic in Nor Cal either in Sacramento or driving from the Bay Area to Sacramento????? Have you been on I5 or I80 lately?
I would have to agree that Riverside is not exactly a tourist spot, but it is not that far from some of the other So Cal attractions that the family could have visited while mom (or dad) was stitching. And, Sacramento doesn't have that much without driving to SF or Tahoe. Certainly not any closer than driving from Riverside to Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm.
Again, they held CATS in Riverside and Ontario, CA for a couple of years and then moved it to Santa Clara. What happened to all of the folks that attended in Sacramento. Did they go to Santa Clara or were they just angry that it was no longer in Sacramento and stopped going all together.
Now, I am sure I am going to get blasted for "my opinion", because I am not a regular poster (usually a lurker) as Karen is, but this is just my opinion and nothing more.
And, just for information, I was raised in So Cal, lived there for 26 years, and then spent the 20 years living in the Bay Area before moving to WA state and am now living in Northern Arizona
As my daughter (who was born and raised in Nor Cal) says "Once a Cali girl, always a Cali girl." I just wish there wasn't so much of this Nor Cal versus So Cal stuff. We are all one state. There is good and bad in both the northern and the southern parts of the state.
I will now don my flame retardant suit in anticipation of all of the angry responses to this post. I guess I'll just go back to lurking.
Anyone who can, should go.... Hershey is moving all of thier operations down to Mexico, so this will eviscerate the entire area -- see it while it is still there.... :(
A few years ago they surprisingly bought up an old family chocolate business in Dartmouth, they then received several government handouts. Now they have shut it down and planned to move the equipment to Mexico but this is one time I am on the side of the unions, no machinery should leave here.
Actually, almost NONE of the CATS shows have been well attended except for Hershey. I started going to the CATS in Atlanta in 2000. Each year I saw it get smaller and smaller and then it was moved to different locales in the southeast and it still dwindled. I went to Hershey about 4 years ago and it was absolutely HUGE by comparison. I went to the show in Las Vegas last year in the spring and, while all of the hotel rooms were booked, neither the classes nor the Market were well attended. Janet (my Stitchin' Buddy) has been going to classes for a bazillion years. She went to SOX and Heart and when those went belly up, she started going to CATS. She says that the southern CATS was not really well attended even from the get-go. Every year, she and I would post telling everyone that if they didn't attend CLASSES and the MARKET, that eventually CATS would go bust and there would be nothing left but the specialty shows. We always heard folks kvetching because the show wasn't in their town and they just didn't want to travel or the classes were too expensive or the hotel cost too much........ Now, I realize that there are a LOT of stitchers who will NEVER be able to afford to go to a needlework show/classes even if they were held a block away. But there are likely just as many, if not more, stitchers who could afford to take a long weekend and do the travel and take classes but chose not to. I guess my point is that WE -- the stitching population in this country -- did not support CATS so they went down a different road. I assume they are making money on their needlework cruises. I really enjoy cruises but I'm not interested in signing up for the ones offered by CATS. I like Marilyn and Lori and Liz and have taken classes from all of them, I'm just not interested in spending my money on what they are offering. I like having all of the different classes to chose from offered by CATS. I especially liked having a lot of different teachers to chose from. VBS -- Janet and I were going to go to one of the needlework shows offered in Kentucky this summer. Unfortunately, they weren't offering anything that Janet was dying to take and the two cutsie classes I was interested in were just too freaking expensive for what you got. Oh Well -- sometime in the future, someone will decide t's time to give the needlework show thing another go. I just hope I'm not too old and decrepit before that happens -- LOLOL! CiaoMeow >^;;^< PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at
I'll be going to Hershey but have changed my timing. In the past I went mostly on the weekend but all the classes I wanted to take were usually on Thurs. This year I plan to arrive Wed and check out Friday
- not too late as I have an early event on Saturday so have to get home at a reasonable time. Don't you know it - what I'd really like to take are classes on Sat. Can't win. I've been going to the festivals ever since they started having them (can't remember if it was SOX or not) in Valley Forge. Those were the days. Many, many classes, a shuttle bus from various hotels to the one where the classes were held and to the convention center connected to the (then) Sheraton where the merchandise mart was, and a huge mall nearby as well. I'm just glad that I got to experience it at its best.
Mary in Md
PS: Next year I think I'll do Celebration in NH or Nordic Needle's retreat. Would be nice to visit another part of the country.
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