What is it with people and large events? Do they have NO awareness of anyone else but themselves? Yes, this is a bit of a rant, based on my experience in the vendor mall at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Let me count the ways….
- People stopping in the middle of the aisle for no apparent reason. They just stop. And you walk into them. Move to the side if you need to answer you phone, respond to a text message etc.
- A group of friends wandering about together — one stops to look at one thing, while two booths ahead are the others who now stop and wonder “Where’s Katie?” with them both turning around and half heading back or wandering about. Here’s a tip: If you go to an event such as this with friends, it’s very likely you’ll have different things that attract you and that you want to look at. So why not say “Let’s meet back at xx place at xx time” and go off by yourselves. You’ll still meet with your friends, and because you haven’t been in each others’ pockets, you’ll have things to share instead of resentment that Susan wanted to look at all the bead things, while Jane wanted to look at fabric, and you wanted to look at machines, yet you all had to spend time on each others’ interests when you couldn’t care less. It’s really not that hard to agree to meet somewhere at a specified time.
- Meandering — yes, an event such as this has hundreds of booths, with lots of new shiny things to look at. Before you wander across the traffic, LOOK at the traffic and pick your moment to cross. Wandering aimlessly from side to side really annoys your fellow shoppers.
- Scooters and walkers — many people have to use these for mobility reasons and know how to handle them. But at an event like this, there is a scooter (gopher) hire place and as far as I know ANYONE can hire one, whether they need it or not. And they MIGHT get a 5-minute lesson in how to operate it. The end result is LOTS of scooters with clueless drivers who run into people walking. Add in the meandering thing above, and you have a recipe for disaster. And it’s poor form to use your scooter to get into some events early, like I saw one woman do on Tuesday night. She aggressively pushed and shoved her scooter to the front of the line for Winners’ Circle, then the next day I saw her walk off the escalator and walk to her classroom — no scooter required now!
End of rant.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
And that’s the main reason I avoid the monster shows. Small ones are bad enough. And don’t get me started on baby strollers! Just don’t complain – that brands you as anti-motherhood and anti-American.