Unfortunately, we have no review to offer for this show; just another horror story of the type of "promoter schizophrenia" with which too many crafters have had to suffer.

After 3 months of having listed Samis Shows and My Ladys' Fairs on our calendar, and having spoken to "the office" prior to each earlier show, Phyllis finally cleared a weekend to make the 6 hour drive from Pensacola to Lafayette. She had even booked a motel for the previous night so that she could devote the entire day to covering the show.

When she arrived at the show and located Sami and her daughter for an anticipated warm welcome, she was greeted instead as if she were a competing show producer attempting to, in Sami's words, "sneak into my show and steal my crafters". Phyllis attempted to remind Sami of their previous contacts and attempted to show Sami the PCM show reviews book, which along with her camera, is the only thing Phyllis carries to the shows. Phyllis was told by Sami, in a very loud voice, that she was "not welcome at the show even as a paying attendee" that she "should go down the road and cover the local flea market" and that Sami refused "to hear any more of her Bull S--t!"

Now, obviously Sami was having a bad hair day but that kind of promoter selfrighteous outburst is anything but professional. If she honestly didn't have any knowledge of PCM or Phyllis, that was not the way to handle the situation. If she honestly thought Phyllis threatened her fiefdom, there had been ample opportunity to let us know that although we were welcome to help promote her shows, we were not welcome to review them (nor even attend them).

Perhaps this was not just the irrational outbust of an out of touch promoter. It has been our experience that, when things are not going well for a particular show, or for a series of shows done by the same promoter, they become very defensive about exposure. Our job at these shows is report them as fairly as possible and, after some 300 show reviews over the last 3 years, most people think we do a good job. We are most interested in finding high quality shows to recommend to our crafters. Phyllis did note in the half hour she had waited outside for Sami to be located, that, as far as she could see this "craft show" was mainly buy/sell items.

In any case, this type of abusive conduct could just as easily have been vented on some poor crafter who makes her living from the craft show circuit and has even less recourse.

We can, of course, no longer recommend or promote any of this organizations events. If you have attended or exhibited at any of the recent Sami/Ladys shows, please go to our exhibitor reports section of PCM and give us your impressions. Here is a link: http://www.panhandlecraftmall.com/reviews.html#EXHIBITOR REPORTS