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| First place winners of the large sculpture competitions at Twist & Shout (top) and IBA. |
Last month saw two major industry events. Artists gathered in Chicago, IL for the IBA convention in conjunction with The Halloween, Costume and Party Show, and Nashville, TN for Twist & Shout. Although the two happened at exactly the same time, making it impossible for everyone to attend both, the industry hardly seemed divided. With Mark, Sheena, and me in Nashville uploading photos as quickly as possible, we had help from Marc Summers putting stuff online and reporting from Chicago.
If you haven't had a chance to check out the activities from each event, you can find the photos online for both:
Twist & Shout photos
IBA Convention photos
Even more important than seeing photos, is actually attending the events. Start planning your trips now for 2008. Twist & Shout will be in Burlington, Massachusetts, February 20 - February 24, 2008. The HCP show has been announced for Las Vegas, Nevada, March 16 - March 19, 2008. There will be a balloon convention in connection with HCP, but details have not been announced yet. I hope to be at both events.
With some recent discussion about strange phone calls that a number of our members have received, it seems worth reviewing what you can do to change the availability of your information on BHQ.
If you work with balloons professionally, we encourage you to be listed in our artist directory. This makes it easy for anyone looking to hire an artist. People can search by location or type of business. The difficulty is that the easier it is to be found by people that will hire you, the easier it also is for people you'd prefer not to meet. So how do you strike that balance between privacy and business promotion?
It comes down to what information you're comfortable sharing. We don't release private information you give us without your explicit permission. When you add your information to the artist directory, you'll see checkboxes allowing you to select which information you want to be public. Some people want their business addresses to be seen by those viewing the directory. Others work from home and prefer to keep the address private but certain phone numbers public. Look yourself up in the directory and click the "update entry" button to adjust your privacy settings.
A number of you have already had contact with our newest team member. Nancy Goethel, a longtime member of BHQ, and an incredibly active entertainer and decorator, started helping out with a few projects. Working with her has been great, so we decided not to let her leave. If you call with member or sponsor related questions, you may get a chance to talk to her. Welcome, Nancy!
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| The Return of the King |
Michael Gjerek and the Balloons IT (Balloons Information Technology) Team offer a most unusual collection of photos. Many are fun and whimsical as well as technically challenging.
See Michael Gjerek and the Balloons IT BHQ Portfolio.
