DAY 5 - LPF - Friday 24th January - Opening Night

Exhibition Set Up

Today was a long day, I arrived for 9.30 this morning and was met by Dutch who has worked on the festival the past 3 years. We got on well which made the rest of the day a doddle and he gave me a bit of an insight into what working in the industry is like. We spent the rest of the day hanging work and getting things in place for the evening. This involved hanging the work, adding the labels and setting up the tables for the bar and live printing.

 

Stamp Mission

Another task I was given was the stamp hunt. Due to Hobby Wise being closed we were unable to get the stamps made that we had previously planned. I was sent into town to try and get my hands on one, this proved rather difficult as no where in Leeds actually sold them and the only ones on sale were completely irrelevant to the event. Eventually after an hour trip round Leeds I was able to purchase a valentines stamp from Paperchase, however they did not have an inking stamp big enough so had to go to WHSmiths to get a large one.

Taking the Table Delivery

One of the other jobs we had to take care of today was the table and chair delivery. We had ordered 14 tables and chairs for the print fair on Saturday and a few for the exhibition. We organised where the tables needed to go and helped set up the equipment.

This was the bar set up for Andy and Greg to serve the people, and also where I was responsible for over inking too many peoples hands.

Live Printing

Tonight we had live printing from Nick from the Print Project and Pat from Nomad Letterpress who were producing beautiful posters for people to take away with them. This proved a big hit and it was great to see people getting involved and learning how the craft works. I really enjoyed chatting to both of them over the course of the evening and will definitely be keeping in touch.

Tonight was a really good chance to network and meet new people and I have come away with some new friendships in the process. It was a really fun experience and was really impressed with the turn out. Hundreds of people flocked through the doors to look at the exhibition and a few for the free beer it seemed!