Update | Creativation 2018, Art Gone Wild, YouTube, Jobs & More!
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Travel. Mother Nature has not been kind to attendees trying to get to Phoenix this week for the Creativation show. Cold and snow throughout the southern part of the United States has resulted in scores of canceled and delayed flights at airports such as Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, and other smaller ones throughout the region.
Atlanta Hartsfield airport
Atlanta Hartsfield airport during friendlier travel days in January 2017.
Compounding the problem for Creativation travelers, the Phoenix airport is undergoing six weeks of runway construction that has closed one of its three runways. This has hampered the airport's ability to handle traffic, and is causing long ground delays for flights taking off bound for that airport even in airports unaffected by weather. (And as if that wasn't bad enough, on Tuesday morning a small plane tipped over on one of the remaining runways, leaving the airport with only one usable runway for a time.)
The runway under repair will remain closed until February 21st, so those attending Creativation should unfortunately expect delays in their departing flights to return home after the show as well.
Events. AFCI has announced a new consumer event to be held in September in Bethel Woods, NY. The event is called "In the MKNG" and is described as "a festival celebrating creativity, imagination and inspiration." In The MKNG will take place on September 29th-30th at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Tickets go on sale June 1st.
The new consumer show appears to be trying to be a new competitor for Pinner's Conf, in a part of the country where that event currently does not have a presence. Many consumers have been asking in online forums for a return of consumer shows from CHA/AFCI since the CHA Mega Show experiment several years ago. It will be interesting to see if this format and location will satisfy those demands.
Spotlight. My Minds Eye had a brush with the spotlight of the fashion world recently when their paper fans were shown as part of a fashion modeled on America's Next Top Model. The dress, created by Nicola Formicetti by Renta Raksha, as modeled by Coura Sasha.
Acquisitions.Northwoods Rubber Stamps has announced they have been acquired by Art Gone Wild. This makes them part of an extensive portfolio of brands that includes Stamper's Anonymous and Verses Rubber Stamps, among others. As a result of the new relationship, Northwoods' new stamp releases will be made available in both wood mount and red rubber cling stamp versions.
Licensing. Waffle Flower Crafts is releasing four new stamps and die sets in the spring with popular illustrator Helen Dardik. She'll be making an appearance at Creativation to promote the designs, from 2-4pm Saturday in the Waffle Flower booth (#645).
Taxes. On January 1st, both Amazon.com and Etsy began collecting sales tax in Washington state.
Changes. YouTube has left a lot of craft industry content creators very unhappy this week with changes that were announced to its monetization program. Any channel without 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time in the last 12 months will be removed from the YouTube Partner Program on February 20th, ending their ability to monetize videos on the platform.
This change will affect large numbers of smaller YouTube channels (including both channels owned by the publisher of this website.) While the financial amounts at stake at those viewership levels are relatively small, several common complaints are being aired about the changes. Of course, many channel owners (including myself) just feel disrespected by a service that's been profiting off their freely provided work. There's also concerns that it creates a huge have/have not gap, where not seeing ads (as annoying as they are) becomes an invisible mark of shame for content since it means that the channel is part of YouTube's "second tier".
For some creators, there is also fear that while they don't make significant money day to day, they now won't have the ability to profit if one of their videos manages to go viral. Bottom line: You never make people happy by taking something they like away from them, and this has made a whole lot of people unhappy. YouTube is going to have to work hard to restore the goodwill of the creators affected. That's if they even are given the chance to - many are looking for alternative ways to serve their video content.
Jobs. The following industry jobs are currently listed as available:
