(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!.)
The LA Pen Show took a back seat this year because they were unable to secure a hotel for the show. The folks behind the California Pen Show were more than ready to step in its place for 2023. If you read the recap from 2022 LA Pen Show, you would know that while I had a good time and still bought lots of things, it was utterly painful to watch and even worse to relive the experience while writing the recap. This year, I worked behind the Franklin-Christoph table (they haven’t been back to LA since 2018), so I didn’t have a lot of time to take as many pictures as I’d like. Everyone, including me, wanted to know if the California Pen Show would fare better. Let’s see how it did.
Size
Considering this was the first ever California Pen Show, I wasn’t sure how big a show it would be. I would say that this is maybe a mid-size show, maybe a touch smaller than past LA shows, but a good size for a first showing. From what I understand, there were over 200 tables for around 80 vendors and 150 VIP passes were sold beforehand. The show was housed in a single large ballroom on the lower levels. Aisles were fairly wide with lots of room to browse and wander. Sizewise, it felt a lot like Baltimore, especially with the single large ballroom. This show is known for a good variety of both modern and vintage pens, and there were plenty of vendors with ink and paper too.
It was really good to see a lot of international vendors at the show including Sarj Minhas (UK), St John’s Pens (UK), Miro Tischler (Croatia), Urso Pens (Italy), and more.
Score: 7/10
Sterling silver BICs? Don’t see that every day, but you can at St. John’s Pens.
Always good to see Jonathon Brooks, but look at all those colorful pens and rods!
Adolphus Smith of Darail Penz is such a lovely gentleman and his pens are lovely too!
Looking for vintage Japanesse pens? Then you gotta see Dayne Nix.
Ana, Jesi and Christine were busy all weekend at the Dromgooles’ 10+ table spread!
This was Retro 51’s first time at an LA show! Stacy Hills is chatting with Joe Corona from Retro 51 about a yellow pen that looks like a great match to his shirt!
A couple of cool Karas Kustoms pens with specially designed cases for the show!
Ryan Krusac was happy to be back in LA and also donated some pens for the raffle!
Great to see John Phelan of Lemur Ink at a pen show!
Dale Beebe of Pentooling.com has all your parts and repair needs!
Casey and Eru of Pilot USA had their array of pens and also the new Iroshizuku cartridges too!
Zach of Skogsy Pens had a beautiful setup for his pens!
Hard to resist stuff from Traveler’s Company!
Location
Ah, Los Angeles, it was a beautiful weekend with mostly sunny skies albeit a bit breezy on Sunday and Monday. A lovely respite from the cold winters of the east coast and abroad! The show is ridiculously easy to get to if you fly in as it is a couple miles from the LAX airport. Lots to do, see and eat in the LA area, including beaches, shopping, museums and of course, Disneyland!
Score - 8/10
Ryan Finnegan and Jeremy Saumure of LA-based Flax Pen to Paper brought so many cool products to the show (including notepads from Yamamoto paper and Troublemaker inks.)
Locals Stacy Hills of Paper Wants a Pen (right) with wife, Jill and daughter, Faith (not pictured) had a lovely selection of pens, jewelry, pen cases, stickers and more.
LAX is not too far for the Yafa folks to get to! Good thing too cuz they had quite a few tables at the show!
Hotel
The California Pen Show was held at the LAX Marriott, which is very close to the airport. The rate was $149 per night which is actually a good price for a decent airport near the hotel. Despite its proximity to the airport, I didn’t really hear a lot of airplane traffic, unless you were outside. The free hotel shuttle ran pretty regularly, approximately every 15-20 minutes. Parking is usually $50/night but was discounted to $25 for show attendees. Unfortunately, the parking did not allow for multiple exit/re-entry, so it was steep for folks not staying at the hotel.
The hotel itself is quite nice and modern - the lobby is very spacious, with several restaurants on the main floor. There were plenty of places to sit and wait for a shuttle, or have a beverage while watching the many screens by the bar. There was also a Starbucks that closed at 5pm (so glad it didn’t close early) as well as a decently sized hotel shop where you can buy souvenirs as well as drinks, snacks, magazines, toiletries, etc. The rooms themselves were typical, the gym was nice and they had a large pool as well. Folks with certain levels of Marriott Elite status had a swanky lounge atop the 18th floor where they could get breakfast, snacks, and drinks.
I personally experienced and heard positive things about the hotel staff in general; they were friendly, polite and helpful. The food at the bar was tasty (I had shrimp tacos which were good and quite a few folks enjoyed the bacon cheeseburger) and folks told me the restaurant food was good as well.
Score - 8/10
I may have spent an hour or four in this area all weekend, haha.
Tickets
Tickets were $15/day or you can get a VIP All-Access pass for $69 which includes access to all the days, including access to the show one hour before General access. All-Access pass members received goodies including a Retro 51 RB, pocket notebook, and show pin; they were also automatically enrolled in the VIP raffle of a Nakaya!!! There were also raffles held throughout all three days, which is always fun for attendees.
Show hours for the weekend were Thursday 1pm-5pm for Dealers and All-Access Pass only, and Friday - Sunday 10am - 5pm (with Dealers and All-Access folks having access at 9am). You could also purchase a 2-day pass for $25, which would grant you access to two days of your choosing. I liked that passes could be purchased online ahead of time, or at the door.
Oh, and since what I just wrote sounds perfectly normal, let me make it abundantly clear – there were THREE PUBLIC DAYS!!!! The previous LA Pen Shows only had ONE public day on Sunday, and forced people who couldn’t go on Sunday, to pay $55/65 for a weekend pass. It was so nice and NORMAL that people could pay a reasonable price to go on a Friday or Saturday.
I am giving it a 8/10 because I really want to highlight how important it is for a show to have multiple public days, and the ticket prices were reasonable.
Score - 8/10
Smiling faces were at the front desk to help you get your tickets!
Classes
To my knowledge, there were no classes or seminars, which is a bit of a bummer since there were a LOT of other smaller ballrooms next to the show ballroom. I was told that this was one thing the organizers regretted not putting enough energy behind, but plan to rectify in the future. I know the scale is 0-10, but I really have a hard time giving any score lower than 5, so this is my compromise.
Score - 4/10
Nib Workers
There were a good number of nib workers at this show. It seemed like they were busy all weekend, so that’s always a good thing. I think this was about the right number of nib workers but they may need 1-2 more if the show continues to grow. Folks are listed in alphabetical order by first name.
- CY of Tokyo Station Pens
- Gena Salorino of Custom Nib Studio
- Kirk Speer of Pen Realm
- Matthew Chen of Matthew’s Nibworks
- Mike Masuyama of Mike It Work
- Taku, CY’s apprentice
Score - 10/10
Taku and CY setting up Friday morning before the crowds (PC: Taku)
Gena working their magic and testing the nib for smoothness.
Kirk is bringing some serious style to the show!
Matthew is hard at work while…
Mike is hanging ten, lol (true story, Mike loves to surf!)
Overall Vibe
People had a great time at the show. Both vendors and attendees alike were happy to be there from the start. It was not overly crowded on any of the days. The busiest and most lucrative day seemed to be Friday, followed by Saturday, and then quite a drop on Sunday (either due to the Super Bowl in the afternoon or typical Sunday slowness). Some vendors did “alright” and others did “great”, but all of them told me they were having a good time and were glad they came.
Vendors were relieved not to have to move every day and attendees enjoyed being able to show up any day they wanted and have a nice, comfortable shopping experience. Sure, there were some bumps, as with any show, but right out of the gate, people felt the organizers did a really good job with the show, and that set the stage for everyone to have a good time.
Score - 8/10
Saturday morning was hopping! Still lots of room for people to walk around and shop comfortably.
Two of my favorite people, Ian Schon and Paul Erano. Modern and vintage. Both talking about pens, both with big smiles.
Speaking of Ian, here he is being recorded by John Foye of St. John’s Pens, who traveled from the UK for his first time at an LA show!
Ikkaku is Nahvalur Pens’ newest release with urushi and raden!
Big news from the weekend - OMAS is back! In a partnership with Frank Zhang (of Nahvalur), Jorge Mejia (pictured) and Manu Caltagirone, OMAS released the new Ogiva Extra Blue Saffron at the CA Pen Show.
Food
As mentioned above, there were 3 restaurants and a Starbucks at the hotel and most folks had their meals there because it was convenient and the food was good at typical hotel prices. I heard that there were some food trucks and other casual dining spots not too far from the hotel, offering Hawaiian, Thai, Mediterranean cuisine and more. For something more in the middle, you’d have to take a short Lyft/cab ride to get pretty much anything you’d want to eat.
Score - 8/10
Starbucks and two of the 3 restaurants in the hotel.
After Hours
The after hours scene was a good one given all the spaces available in the lobby and near the bar area! People gathered on the couches, tall and short tables and were passing around pens and showing off their goodies. This started on Thursday afternoon and lasted into Sunday for the folks like me who were still in town. Of course, this gal was having such a good time every night that she forgot to take pictures until Sunday night. (Mental note to self, don’t stay up til 1:30am on Thursday night of a pen show weekend, haha!)
Usually things are slower on Saturday night in LA because everyone is waiting for the crazy Sunday crowds but since there were 3 public days, plenty of folks were hanging out Saturday night too! There were folks watching the Super Bowl on Sunday as well and were happy to relax after a long weekend show.
Score - 8/10
Adjacent to the bar were high tables and couches and plenty of room for people to gather, show off pens and chat. Good times!
Other
I spent most of my recap from last year explaining how weird the LA Show is compared to all the other US shows I’ve attended. And I can’t tell you what a relief it was for me and for everyone around to experience it as a regular pen show. Were there hiccups and things the organizers can improve on? Absolutely (and I’ll talk about that in a bit). But from the get-go, vendors were happy because they knew where they would be all weekend. Ballrooms were locked at 5pm, not unlocked and unsupervised until 11pm. Attendees could pick which days they wanted to go and pay a very reasonable price. This really put everyone in a good mood heading into the pen show weekend.
Thursday - I didn’t spend much time talking about Thursday afternoon, which is typically reserved for vendors and weekend pass holders to get a first look at each other’s pens and things, as well as for non-vendors to sell some of their own pens to fund pen show purchases. This was held in one of the smaller ballrooms as access to the main ballroom wasn’t available. It’s pretty common for some of the vendors to buy/sell/trade on Thursday to prepare for not only this show, but for future shows too. Not all pen shows do this, but the ones with a good number of vintage dealers will have Thursday trading hours.The previous LA shows had Thursday trading hours (in the main ballroom), so it was nice to see the CA Pen Show continuing this tradition.
Thursday afternoon and people were already shopping, selling, wheeling and dealing! (PC: Shane Glynn: chiefnoofficer_ on IG)
Thefts - It is sad when there is theft at a pen show. The LA Pen Show has had a notoriously bad reputation for thefts; most recently a whole suitcase being stolen on Thursday, as well as trays at Sarj Minhas’ and Ray Walters’ tables among others. At this show, there were a few items stolen from several different vendors, but it was much less than in past years. Is that because thieves didn’t know the show was happening? Not sure, but the security at the front were pretty vigilant about making sure people had wristbands or badges before entering. When I left my badge at the F-C table, I was escorted to my table where I showed my badge. Over the top? I don’t think so. I hope that it was enough of a deterrent to keep the thefts low.
In other theft-related news, the folks from Urushi Pen had their rental car broken into while in LA after the show (not at the hotel) and had all their luggage stolen, including a lot of Danitrio and ShiZen pens. Please be on the lookout for sales of these pens. Just another sad reminder to be careful of leaving valuable stuff in your car, even if it’s in the trunk.
A few thoughts (which I will also share with the organizers, Frank Zhang of Nahvalur (formerly Narwhal) Pens and Mario Campa of Toys from the Attic):
- More hype/social media/advertising - A lot of people did not know that this show was happening, only that the LA Show was canceled this year. If you look at the CA Pen Show IG account, you will see a whopping 8 posts, 5 of which were posted AFTER the show started. The account has fewer than 600 followers, which means, even if they posted more, their reach would be limited. In addition, they did make Facebook posts to some fountain pen groups, but not enough. I think they should have also reached out to the area’s stationery stores as well as pen groups like GLAMPIG (Greater LA Metro Pen & Ink Group) and Orange County Pen Club to get folks excited about the show and to spread the news.
- More attendees - I think it would have been better with more people at the show. Maybe it’s related to the above, in that people didn’t know about it? Or maybe they did but were worried about it being a first time show? Maybe they had bad experiences prior? Maybe it was Super Bowl weekend? Nobody really knows but I think more people in the door definitely would have helped sales, especially for some of the lesser known vendors.
- Classes/seminars - I spoke with the organizers who told me that this was one thing that they didn’t spend enough energy on, and that they would work on that next year.
- Bigger room for Thursday’s Vendor/weekend pass trading day - I think more people would have brought their goods and spent more time if it was held in a bigger room.
- Teensy logo change? - Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee it, but the logo for the show looks like “Galifornia” instead of “California. I heard so many jokes about it when the logo first came out and during the show too. Just a teensy little design change and I think it would be fine.
- Water - THANK YOU for making lots of water available outside the ballroom. It may not seem like much, but it’s nice to be able to step out of the ballroom and grab a quick cup of water. It is easy for folks who spend all day, in a dry, air-conditioned ballroom, talking about their products, to get dehydrated, so I was very grateful for that.
I think this show had a lot going for it, namely two organizers who wanted to do better than what had been done in the past, and vendors who were more than ready for it. That said, there is room for improvement (hence this score) and I think they should be more than able to build on this first admirable effort.
Score - 7/10
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 first ever 2023 California Pen Show scored 76/100, which is actually a decent score, when you consider that the lowest score was due to lack of any classes/seminars. Everyone was glad to be there from start to finish and said they look forward to coming back next year.
My relatively modest haul included the Bellroy Tokyo Tote (Flax Pen to Paper), two Winnie-the-Pooh Retro 51 FPs (Dromgooles), CA Pen Show ‘23 “Sunset” ink by Robert Oster, two Franklin-Christophs, vintage painted Platinum and tea cup from Traveler’s Company. Not pictured were two pens that I had ground to Cursive Italics by Mike Masuyama.
I’m off for a little vacay next week, but look forward to the next pen show in Baltimore. Until then, stay safe and stay inky!
