Phoenix Convention

Guest Post by Alison Malanowski

With the Pasadena Convention completed, my family and I prepared for our next big show. The following weekend, July 24-25, was the AFHE - The 27th Annual Arizona State Home Educator's Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. We left Simi Valley early in the morning, and made great time, seeing little traffic. We arrived late Thursday afternoon to prepare for the weekend ahead of us. We were allowed to drive our van into the convention hall and right by our table to unload, which was very convenient. The hall was huge, the booths were full of vendors busy setting up and we knew we were set for a fantastic event.


The next morning proved our thoughts to be true as we walked in past lines of familes waiting to enter. Once the doors were opened, we had a pretty even flow of customers throughout the day, with all of us continually telling parents about our DVD of THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL and making sales. Through the course of this convention, we started to notice a pattern with the attendees. They would filter off to go to different sessions and exhibits for an hour or more at a time. During that period, the hall was rather quiet; until, ten minutes later, the people started flooding in again. Other vendors told us that we should consider doing a seminar on our company Light A Candle Films and our Mission Statement and future plans. We all think this is a very good idea, and will do so for the 2011 Homeschool Season.


We also had quite a few people come over to ask us technical questions about how we actually created THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL; like why Dad chose to shoot on film instead of video, and how hard it was to do a full 5.1 Dolby Stereo sound mix. We also made time to visit other booths and talk about production details with other Christian filmmakers like the fine folks at Studio K Productions. Studio K has a fantastic body of work ranging from infomercials to industrials. You can check out their website here.


It was really a lot of fun meeting new homeschool familes, and we even ended up seeing some exhibitors we had met in Pasadena; including our friends at Little Crew Studios with their film THE RUNNER FROM RAVENSHEAD (click here for more info). Again, we received a lot of positive feedback, and everyone there seemed to really like the idea of what we're trying to do. Overall, it was a very successful convention.









Afterwards, we took a small trip over to Sedona, Arizona and visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross. It was so beautiful, and just amazing to be up there overlooking all the fantastic rock formations. God's Handiwork in nature is just awesome. (We also managed to buy alot of Christmas presents in their gift shop!).




So, with all that said, we've pretty much wrapped up our summer convention trips. We've got one more coming in the next few weeks, and we'll post more about it soon.