The Inaugural Empire State Pen Show Recap [2025]

In the 20+ year history of Goldspot Pens, if one thing is consistent about the online pen shop, it’s that we don’t usually table at pen shows. (Only twice in Philadelphia, if memory serves correctly) However, when a new show came to our backyard, we had to make an exception.

Located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, the Empire State Pen Show took place on October 11th-12th at the Midtown Hilton hotel. It’s a new show, but New York is no stranger to pen shows. For years, Hofstra University hosted the modest Long Island Pen Show. Even in its first year, the Empire State Pen Show exhibited the mightiness of the pen on a whole other level.

I’ve been on both sides of the table - both as an exhibitor and an attendee. In reflecting on the inaugural Empire show, I’d like to offer a behind-the-scenes perspective on the experience of a first-time pen vendor at a first-time pen show.

Empire State Pen Show, Rhinelander ballroom on Saturday, October 11th. Photo credit: Erdem Cetintas, Rhodope Visual Arts LLC @erdem_cetintas

If anyone’s been wondering why Goldspot hasn’t posted as many long-form YouTube videos lately, you can blame two things: designing the fall print catalog and preparing for the Empire State Pen Show. With almost no experience exhibiting at pen shows, the Goldspot Team spent a lot of energy preparing over the weeks leading up to the show.

We ordered banners, booked rooms, designed a Trader Joe’s-like tote bag to give away with purchase, set up a point of sale system to accept card payments, ordered a cash box (which didn’t arrive in time from Amazon), created a slide deck for a “Fountain Pen Basics” seminar, made matching Goldspot t-shirts, whittled 10,000+ skus on our website to about 100 items we would take with us to sell, packed it all up in boxes, got the word out on social media, and sent e-mails to our pen pals to help bring awareness to the show.

In short, there was a lot of work done before setting foot inside the Rhinelander ballroom.

Since Goldspot wasn’t experienced in tabling at pen shows, there were many questions we answered with our best guesses.

“How many bottles of ink should we bring?”

I originally wanted to bring 200 bottles of Cthulhu. I knew it was a popular ink and, once people saw the color and the sheen in person, they would be seduced to buy it. Thankfully, we didn’t bring that many - we sold 30 bottles over the weekend.

“Should we bring paper?”

Look, we know how important paper is to the writing experience. A great pen and ink isn’t going to write well if you use cheap, recycled paper. But, as we discussed the possibility of bringing journals and pads to sell at the Empire Pen Show, we decided to leave the bulky, weighty paper at home. We did bring plenty of Rhodia tester pads to try the inks and pens we had on display.

Line outside the Rhinelander ballroom on Saturday, October 11th. Photo credit: Erdem Cetintas, Rhodope Visual Arts LLC @erdem_cetintas

Although the show started at 10 am on Saturday, the Goldspot crew was up, bright and early at 7 am, setting up our 3 tables. All of the “Should we’s” and “How many’s” had to be put aside - it was show time.

There was a healthy line of people waiting at the doors of the Rhinelander room on the second floor of the Midtown Hilton. And, once 10 am came, they flooded in. As I’m sure folks waiting in line were counting down when they would get a chance to enter, I was counting down the time (or, my phone was doing it for me) until I had to step away from the table to give my “Fountain Pen Basics” seminar at 10:30 am.

We were in the Murray Hill West, but the website said we were supposed to be in the East room. There was only one room with a projector set up, so that was the room we had to be in. My wife and two kids helped hand out the bags for the seminar while I set up my laptop with the projector.

In the presentation, I attempted to cram 19 years of experience in the pen industry into about 30 minutes, or 36 slides. As with all my YouTube video scripts, I also tried to inject humor and keep all the boring, but necessary, parts brief. During the first seminar, I felt like I rambled too much. But, as my wife pointed out, a majority of the oversold (it was supposed to be 30 tickets, but they expanded it into 40 when it sold out) audience stayed the entire time, and stayed for the Q&A part after.

Note: I plan on re-doing the presentation as a video on YouTube, complete with slideshow visuals.

Tom and Kiran of Goldspot with Mark (not Rick) from Rickshaw Bagworks. Photo credit: Erdem Cetintas, Rhodope Visual Arts LLC @erdem_cetintas

When the first seminar was over, I was “back to work” at the Goldspot Pens table. While I was on my feet for hours, talking pens, helping with transactions, taking selfies with pen pals who enjoy watching my videos, I never felt like this was “hard work” to me. I was on an all-day surge of positive brain chemistry fueled by discussing a topic that I enjoy immensely - writing with beautiful pens.

Oh, and it also helped that I had coffee.

By the time the next seminar came at 4 pm, my wife reminded me that I should probably eat, as I hadn’t done so at all, which isn’t unusual for me since I do intermittent fasting often enough. However, my body was probably not going to forgive me if I didn’t have at least half a chicken sandwich that was bought for me. So, about 15 minutes or so before the next seminar, I sat outside the Murray Hill West room, eating my sandwich.

A crowd of people for the 4 pm seminar started to gather a few minutes before. My family and I went into the same room we were in earlier that day and, to our surprise, found a gathering of 6 people and an instructor already leading a class. They were in the middle of a seminar (on dip pens, I believe) and they weren’t using the projector.

I needed the room with the projector. However, they were unwilling to budge. They had to start late because the seminar before them started late, and they were already in the middle of doing their thing. OK. After going back and forth with the seminar host, finding Frank Zhang (the show organizer), and asking if the projector could be moved (which no one did), I compromised and did the seminar presentation in the other Murray Hill room with the small 15” screen of my laptop, facing the audience of about 40 people.

The lack of visuals forced me to be more descriptive and less rambly. And, because I already practiced once earlier in the morning, I felt my delivery improved, and I was more engaged with the audience the second time around.

All in all, it must have been a decent enough presentation to get mentioned in a Bloomberg article about the show.

As I said to my family during the weekend, we’ve been to New York City many times, but this was the first time I truly felt like a tourist - in a good way.

Blessedly, we got extra sleep on Sunday morning as we met back at the table again at 8:30 am. Most of the table was still set up. We put back all the high-value pens that we packed away the night before (not that a $79 fountain pen isn’t a high value - comparatively, a $500 pen is more). We filled new water cups, uncapped all the ink bottles, turned the writing sample pads to fresh pages, and we were good to go for day 2.

And, yes, Tom abandoned the table once more! At 11 am, I participated in a 4-person panel hosted by Alexandra Richardson with Aiden Bernal, Tori from Stationery Universe, and me. According to Alexandra, tickets for this free “Coffee and Pens” open panel sold out beforehand. But, as they were free tickets, most were a no-show. So, we had an intimate discussion in front of a group of 6 people, 9 if you count my family in attendance.

The panel discussed our favorite nib grinds, desert island pen and ink combinations, collecting ethos, and latest acquisitions. Since it was a small audience, we regularly interacted with the group, so it was almost like a Q&A discussion. Good times.

After the panel, I had business to conduct. I felt time was running out to do the one thing that I still hadn’t done since I got to the show - buy a pen. The weather continued to threaten, and once the vendors started packing up, it would be all over.

I needed to visit Ian Schon to buy a Monoc nib.

It was the one pen I had on my shopping list for the show, and I was leaving it to chance that he wouldn’t already be sold out by Sunday afternoon. Although I didn’t know exactly which color of the full-sized aluminum pen I wanted, I did know I wanted a fine Monoc nib, which, thankfully, they still had at the table. Kimberly (@allthehobbies) helped me find the perfect, colorful body design and pair it with the nib. I chose a polished turquoise body with splotches of royal blueish-purple, which remind me of ink splatters. The nib has a gradient coloring that shifts from blue to yellow to reddish-purple at the very tip.

I returned to the Goldspot table triumphant, showing off my new pen to my coworkers, who gave me the “where-have-you-been” look as they were busy the entire time I was away. Kidding, they understood and were happy for me.

Attendees liked the extra room to roam around the pen show floor. Photo credit: Erdem Cetintas, Rhodope Visual Arts LLC @erdem_cetintas

Sunday had a more laid-back vibe. People walked in with umbrellas, giving us updates about the weather outside. It was just raining at the moment. But it sounded like we were going to head into worse weather when driving back to Jersey later. Thankfully, it didn’t stop people from coming, and a majority of the vendors (including Goldspot) stayed till the end. We were still ringing people up even as we started to pack away our pens at 5 pm.

After the show, I spoke to both Frank (the Empire State Pen Show organizer) and Kiran (Goldspot’s co-owner) to ask if the show had been successful from a business perspective. The way many people were talking at the show, it seemed a foregone conclusion that it would happen again next year. It’s assumed that, since it’s a new show, Empire would take a loss the first year, which it did. But, the vibe I got from Frank is that Empire would continue, provided the hotel would give us the same rates for the space and the rooms. I’m pretty sure Kiran is on board for making Goldspot Pens a staple vendor at this show.

Personally, I had fun. Not only did I get a chance to talk with a bunch of great people about pens all day, but I also spent time in Midtown Manhattan with the family. I’ve dragged the family to the DC Pen Show before, and the Sheraton in Falls Church is miles away from anything, including DC proper. The Empire State Pen Show is in the heart of NYC and a short walk to EVERYTHING. I’d do it again. And, I hope to see more of you there next year!

Notes for Next Year's Show

Things that came through in the clutch:

• Water bottles, snacks
• Strong cellphone signal (to use the point-of-sale system)
• Hilton Bellhops

Things we could do without:

• Bringing luggage from the parking garage blocks away. Just pull the car up to the 6 ½ Ave entrance.
• Miscommunication over the seminar meeting room. Maybe just do one seminar.
• Retro 51 rollerball pens (they weren’t good sellers) people were mostly interested in our fountain pens and inks