People of Portland, ransack your attics!
The rather popular antique appraisal show winged its way through Portland today, and I had a front row seat. Rather, I was on a production crew and spent twelve hours on my feet helping to document family heirlooms and lucky thrift store finds. Somewhere between five and six thousand people made it through the gauntlet at the Oregon Convention Center today, and through some pretty remarkable event coordination (and nearly a hundred volunteers!) it went off without a hitch.
When you watch the show, you have absolutely no idea what a zoo it is on the set. We were setting up shots with guests to show their treasures to appraisers wherever we could carve out space, and I helped to herd people afflicted with “Deer in the Headlights” syndrome out of the way as necessary. Even when the crowd got starstruck when one of the appraisal twins went by, my producer would rally with, “This is reality television, folks!” and we would press on. From clocks to firearms, garden gnomes to apple peeling machines, we covered it all.
I’ve never seen so many men wearing hawaiian shirts in one place since the last luau I attended. It was amazing at what people brought in, and even more impressive how they brought it in. Large paintings maneuvered on wheeled contraptions, dime store wooden Indian statues on dollys, little red wagons filled with vintage toys, and giant blown art glass containers bravely carried by hand. Towards the end of the afternoon the sound of a dropped glass object reverberated through the auditorium, and all went silent for split-second before hundreds of people drew their breath collectively in horror.
There was an amusing point where I was running interference for my photog to give him room to manuever, and the gentleman conversing with the appraiser who shared the table we were shooting at started getting pissy with me because I was trying to keep him out of the shot.
“Do you mind? I’m trying to get my item appraised here!”
The crowd was a mix of people who just wanted to get their items appraised for free, others who hoped to get on the show, and a band of weary spouses dragged to the event by their significant others. At one point emergency struck and a call went out over the headsets.
“Can we get some chocolate over to an appraisal table STAT? They have run out of candy!”
A page was sent scurrying and soon returned with an assortment of snack sized chocolate bars, placating the talent and allowing things to move on.
Which local items made the cut to be on the show? You’ll just have to tune in for the new season beginning January 2005 to find out.
Oy…somebody dropped something?!! We missed that! Do you know what it was? (Hopefully it wasn’t anything too valuable. Oops!) What a crazy event, eh? But it was great to see you again! We just got home, so I’ll probably blog my end of the story tomorrow. Take care!
Hey you were working at the Roadshow? Any good backstage gossip?? I was kinda disappointed that we were in the first group on Saturday morning, so there wasn’t that much going on yet…it’s so much smaller in real life than it looks on tv