(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 just came back from what is likely my last show of this year and I’m glad I spent it at the Colorado Pen Show. Every show has a vibe which I try to capture through pictures and lots of words and this show is no different. While it is difficult to capture a show’s vibe in just one word, it’s easier for some - fun, overwhelming, busy, chill, big, etc. What’s the word that describes the Colorado Pen Show? Read on to find out.

This was the first time I spent time working with John and Carol Gillett from Luxury Brands of America (LBA). They are the distributors behind brands like BENU, Platinum, Waldmann, Dee Charles, ColorVerse, Girologio and more. I was only supposed to help out with setup and tear down but I ended up helping out most of the weekend.

Size

The Colorado Pen Show is a small show with ~24 vendors. I heard from folks that it was smaller than their last show, which was 2019. They had a virtual show in 2020 and had to cancel the 2021 show at the last minute due to hotel issues. For context, the most recent Dallas show had 58 vendors and I considered that somewhere between small and midsize. But smaller doesn’t mean there wasn’t good shopping to be done! Once again, Dromgoole’s came with a good variety of pens, paper and inks. LBA and Kenro Industries were there representing their brands and the rest of the folks were a mix of vendors like Ryan Krusac, Joel Hamilton, Nik Pang, Grifos Pens, Colorado’s own Kirk Speer of Pen Realm, and more.

*Always good to see Ryan Krusac, one of the show sponsors, and his beautiful pens.*

*Brian Weaver of Ironfeather Creative showing off his beautiful creations.*

*Dan Keller of Good Made Better with Quinn while Graham was doing the scavenger hunt.*

*Dan demonstrating how he likes to use his new lap desk.*

*The Karas Kustoms team with their goods including…*

*This pen show exclusive Vertex, cleverly named the Colorado Pen Show Vertex.*

The show is open on Friday from 4pm - 8pm, Saturday from 9am - 5pm and Sunday from 10am - 3pm. This is one of the few shows where Friday morning to early afternoon is devoted to classes, allowing vendors to take their time setting up (or even arriving on Friday morning) and not have to worry about classes competing with sales. As I mentioned above, I helped LBA with their setup but I was done by 2pm so I was able to do most of my shopping before the show opened.

*First time that Luxury Brands of America brought their ink testing station since the pandemic started!*

*Larry Dromgoole with his wife Christine (to his left) and local ink slinger Jesi Coles (in the back) were busy all weekend.*

00-Kenro — *Cary Yeager of Kenro Industries had several new pens to show off including the recently released Esterbrook Estie Maui…*

*And this Estie Oktoberfest (great, now I want a pen AND a beer!)*

Roses Without Thorns — *I love these amazing popup cards from Roses without Thorns!*

Colorado is the smallest show I’ve attended (though there are a bunch that I haven’t been to), so it’s going to get a lower score than the larger ones. I hate giving it such a low score but that’s the only way for me to differentiate it from larger shows. Score: 5/10

Location

The Colorado Pen show is 16 miles (20-30 minutes) west of the Denver International (DEN) and about 10 miles (15-25 minutes) northeast of downtown Denver. DEN is a hub for United and I believe for Southwest as well, so it’s fairly easy to get to.

I’m in Colorado several times a year because my in-laws live up in the mountains of Summit County (about 80 miles and 1.5 hours west), so I can attest to how great it is for outdoor activities year round. In Denver, there are also several major sports teams including the Denver Broncos, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Rockies (despite my best efforts, my son is a Rockies fan and not a Giants fan) and the recent Stanley Cup winning Colorado Avalanche. The weather this past weekend was pleasant and warm, though it did start to cool down a bit on Sunday (with frost expected Sunday night). Score: 7/10

Hotel

This is the first time the Colorado Pen Show was held at the Embassy Suites Denver Central Park (don’t let the name fool you, there is no park here, lol). The pen show was located in primarily one ballroom with the registration table and Joel Hamilton’s tables just outside the ballroom. There was also a small ballroom that was used for classes.

*Pen Posse folks at the registration table with Joel’s tables in the back.*

As with many of the Embassy Suites, the rooms are all along the perimeter of the hotel, so the middle is open from floor to roof. The central downstairs atrium houses the restaurant/dining area. The hotel included breakfast (which I heard was pretty good, but as usual, I ate oatmeal in my room) and a late afternoon happy hour. There were lots of places to sit near the bar, though the staff was slammed all weekend. They had us move out of the area immediately next to the bar ~10pm, though they still served alcohol . The central atrium wasn’t very well lit and it also had a big light which changed colors so we needed to bust out our phones to look at pens and inks up close.

*You can see that the atrium was dimly lit, except for that one huge color-changing light.*

As the name implies, all of the rooms are suites, which were nice and roomy, albeit a bit dated. I definitely needed it for all the stuff I brought and would buy. It was also convenient for making oatmeal in the morning as well as sitting down on the couch to relax in the evenings. There is free daytime parking at the hotel and $9 overnight parking, which is very reasonable. The room rate was $129/night which is about average for pen show hotels. Score: 8/10

Tickets

Tickets were $5 per person, free for kids, which is one of the lowest prices for pen show tickets. There are no weekend passes, nor early access. As mentioned above, the show hours were Friday 4pm - 8pm, Saturday 9am - 5pm and Sunday 10am-3pm. Score: 10/10

*There was a line of 30+ folks waiting to get in on Friday!*

Classes

There were 4 classes on Friday, 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. In addition to handwriting/calligraphy classes, I really liked that they also had a fountain pen-friendly paper class and a pocket journal making class. Considering a show of this size, I think this was a good amount of classes. I think a Fountain Pens 101 or Pen Shows 101 seminar would be a nice addition early Friday afternoon before the show starts. Score: 7/10

Nib Workers

There weren’t a lot of nib workers at this show; in fact, there was just one - Kirk Speer of Pen Realm, the local favorite. I know Kirk was busy all weekend long as his signups were full at least a week before the show and he tried to squeeze in walk-ups.

*Kirk was swamped all weekend grinding and fixing nibs.*

*The Speer family were all there helping out this weekend.*

*Pen Realm had an impressive display of pens and also bargain ink bins (Jesi and I may or may not have elbowed each other to get to the inks, lol.)*

Given that there hasn’t been a show here in 3 years, a lot of people had pens that needed work, not to mention wanting grinds and tunes for new purchases. I think the show would benefit from having at least one more nib worker since there was definitely demand for nib work. Score: 6/10

Overall Vibe

You know how I said some shows are fun (maybe you think of SF and Baltimore) or overwhelming (DC) or large (SF, DC) or confusing (LA), etc? Well, the word that stood out to me for the Colorado Pen Show isn’t “small”, even though it is a small show. It’s “community” - no doubt about it, the feeling of community starts from the very beginning to the very end. Show organizer Ed Capizzi is always at the ready with answers, solutions, open arms and receptive ears. When they ran out of rooms in the show block, Ed not only put me in touch with the hotel agent’s direct line, he also followed up with me several times to make sure I was taken care of. When he realized I was helping out LBA, he came by to check if he needed to get an extra lunch plate (and no, not because I eat a lot, lol). Ed also did his fair share of Pen Show Uber and helped make sure people got rides to/from the airport - he even volunteered to wake up stupid early on Sunday to take Cary to the airport (I’m definitely not that nice). In addition to Ed’s tireless efforts, there is also the Colorado Pen Posse who was supporting the show all weekend. Other shows also have pen groups that help out at their shows but the turquoise-shirted posse peeps were everywhere! They routinely roamed the room to check with vendors to see if they needed a break, water (which is critical when you’re at mile high elevation), or someone to help out at the table when they were swamped.

*I managed to snap a picture of Joel just after Ed got the whole ballroom to sing Happy Birthday to him! He looks great for 72, doesn’t he?!*

The show also had door prizes donated by various vendors and also quickly put together a scavenger hunt for kids - their prize was a Platinum Preppy of their choice - I think we gave out at least 20 Preppies! It’s a great way to get kids into pens and also to distract them from all the shopping their parents are doing! Score - 8/10

*Kids loved roaming the show to check off all the items!*

*Ed announcing the winner for stuff donated by Goods Made Better (Quinn drew the tickets!)*

*This lucky winner won a beautiful pen from Ryan Krusac!*

Food

As I mentioned above, the hotel has breakfast included and also has a hosted happy hour (and a half). There was a decent amount of variety and the food was pretty good at typical hotel prices. I had the pulled pork and apple pie for lunch at the show and they were tasty – especially the dessert. If you didn’t want to eat at the hotel, then you needed a car (or a Lyft) because there isn’t anything within walking distance, unless the House of Dankness across the street counts (which it doesn’t, cuz their products will just make you hungrier, lol).

There are a lot of options within a few mile radius and more if you drive 20 minutes to downtown Denver, there is a whole plethora of food to choose from. Nearby, I went to Cuba Cuba Sandwicheria for delicious Cuban food which was not too far from Target and another night I went to a great Mexican restaurant as well. I would’ve liked more options closer to the hotel, but it’s just hard to find a place to eat if you’re not local to the area. Score - 7/10

*These tacos from Cuba Cuba were so tasty!*

After Hours

The hotel has happy hour from 5pm-6:30pm and everyone is ready to kick off the socializing! Even on Friday, when the show ended at 8pm, most folks stuck around the hotel to eat and got to listen to Michelle Malizaki do some standup comedy! Afterwards, folks moved to the area next to the bar, which was the only place that had decent lighting. Unfortunately they kicked us out of that area around 10pm, but folks moved into the tables in the atrium and moved tables and chairs so folks could chat and play with pens. The bartender and server were friendly but they were definitely swamped all weekend.

*Michelle Malizaki works for Maruman by day and is a standup comic by night!*

After-hours wound down before midnight, probably because a lot of folks had to drive home each night. I’m using to hanging out until stupid hours of the night but it was also nice to get a decent amount of sleep for a change. As always, I had the best of intentions for taking pictures during the hangouts but I was too busy enjoying hangout time to do so. Fortunately, Sue Beck (who also worked at the Pen Realm table this weekend) didn’t forget to take video of after hours pen fun! Score - 8/10

*It was great hanging out in the brightly lit area near the bar. In the* *IG reel, you can see how much darker it is in the atrium.*

*The atrium was a decent place to hang out until the sun went down - it’s still lit pretty well in the late afternoon.*

Other

Even though it is a small show, the Colorado Pen Show had a steady flow on Friday and Saturday and even a decent flow of people on Sunday. As I said before, a lot of people have missed going to a pen show since the last Colorado show was 3 years ago and I think a lot of people made the time to get to the show, even if they couldn’t stay the whole weekend. Sometimes “small shows” can mean “low sales” but many of the folks told me they had good sales this weekend and that is always good to hear.

Something did happen on Friday that put a damper on things though – a few vendors noticed that one or more pens had disappeared from their tables. After we found out about the theft, I hung around the LBA table for the rest of the weekend so I could help keep an eye on things too. One of the vendors decided to set up their camera phone on Saturday and the thief was bold (and crazy) enough to come back and take some more pens! When the vendor noticed a pen was missing, they watched the video and told other vendors to keep an eye on the guy while he called 9-1-1. Several vendors confronted the guy as he headed to the parking lot while a bunch of pen posse folks surrounded him until the cops showed up. They watched the video footage, took statements from the affected vendors, cuffed the guy and took him away. Some of the pens that were taken on Friday were still on him, as well as pens that were taken on Saturday. Thankfully those items were returned to their rightful sellers but a few items weren’t recovered. (Note: because the case is still under investigation, I am not naming names.)

While I absolutely hate that this happened, I and everyone there were glad and relieved that he was caught. It was heartening to see vendors coming together to keep an eye on each other. And the pen posse stepped up their efforts to help keep an eye on things - in several cases, if tables got busy or if a vendor needed to look for inventory, a pen posse member would stop by, without even being asked.

And for a complete change of topic, tell me what other pen show has a falconer?!?! Yes, that’s right, the Colorado Pen Posse has a member who is a trained falconer (who handles more than just falcons) and introduced us to Owlfred Hitchcock, an awesome name for this Great Horned Owl! Debbie gave a quick talk about owls, falconry in general, and even how some of the English colloquialisms came from falconry (did you know that “being fed up” came from birds not being as easily trained once they are full, i.e. are fed up?). Definitely a highlight of the show!

I talked about Ed a bit earlier but one thing I really appreciated and loved is that he and his wife Leslie hung out with folks every night. And not just a little bit, but for many hours after the show. In fact, he was one of the folks I was with til the very end on Sunday night. Being a show organizer is a tough job but he kept repeating how much he loves it because it’s all about sitting around and enjoying the people, the community. The Colorado Pen Show was all about community and it shows. Score - 9/10

*So lucky to spend time with pen friends, old and new!*

Report Card

0-50 Oof, do not attend

51-70 Show is alright

70-80 Show is solid

80-90 Show is pretty darned good!

91-100 REALLY good show and not to be missed

The 2022 Colorado Pen Show scored 75/100, which is largely due to it being a small show. I had a good time all weekend, even if late nights weren’t as late as at other shows. Another nib worker or two, maybe one or two more classes/seminars, and some closer food options (or a list of nearby options) would’ve boosted the show to the next level.

My not-so-modest haul included a Parker Duofold Centennial, Rotring Lava Mechanical Pencil, Sheaffer Desk set, the set of Platinum Preppy Wa series 2, Esterbrooke JR Pumpkin, Colorverse Country Roads, Space Needle, Long Trail, 3 inks from the Kingdom Series, Krishna Jungle Volcano/J Herbin Orange Soleil/Pelikan Edelstein Golden Beryl from Kirk Speer’s bargain inks bins and Colorverse Butterfly Nebula.

*I’ve waited 2+ years to finally take a selfie with my 3 John’s from Colorado Pen Posse! So happy to finally get this shot!*

Colorado was my 10th pen show of this year. I left with a much emptier wallet but a much fuller heart. I’ve gotten plenty of pens and inks from shows this year and I’m ready to hunker down until 2023 pen show season! Until then, stay safe and stay inky!