Bradford Zine Extravaganza yesterday was incredible! We met some amazing people, got some awesome zines and sold lots of zines and books to the lovely folk that came into the caravan.
Thanks to Loosely Bound for putting it on and Jean McEwan for making it all possible!
It was pretty funny trying to negotiate my way through a busy city centre on a Saturday towing a caravan. It was extra busy that day because the new park had just opened and they were holding an opening event with activities and acrobats and all kinds of things. So the city centre was positively bustling with activity!
We managed to find the place after manoeuvring around a slalom of stubborn balloon sellers and general public, and positioned ourselves in front of the window. Unfortunately it was at that particular moment that a group of performance artists had planned to do a dance in the shop window behind where we’d just parked, and so I had to quickly reverse out of there, with the caravan, back up the hill, whilst trying not to hit any children.. which would have been fine if the 60 year old caravan with its faulty reverse lock hadn’t got stuck and refused to move backwards. So we were stuck in between a performance and a whole host of people who had gathered to see it. Poor James had to wedge himself between the car and the caravan whilst pushing on the caravan to try and alleviate the pressure from the car and I reversed it with a little help from one of the organisers! Oh dear. I’m sorry performance artists.
We felt like the Chuckle Brothers bodging in on stage at the English National Ballet with a 14ft pane of glass and shouting ‘where do you want this mate?’
Luckily we sorted it out. Thanks to James.
We set up, and ate some nice cakes from the ‘Project Babe’ stall and set about wooing Bradford with our wares.
I met some really interesting people who now want me to come to art fairs and exhibitions that they’re putting on, and I’ve got some lovely new stock from a few more zine makers, including Threads and Letters, Project BABE, Melanie Maddison and many more!.
I’ve got a new zine in all about vegetarian cooking which I’ll be talking about later!
All in all it was a brilliant day. Even the bit where we went the wrong direction home for about half an hour. After praising ourselves for not using a sat nav..
I’m hoping to go to Soltaire Arts Trail next year as I hear the caravan would fit in perfectly, and I’ve got a few dates lined up for events at the end of April and May, so watch out for news.
You can see more pictures from the zine fair here
And look at the Loosely Bound blog here
