Save the dates: 18th Annual Midwest & Great Northern Printers Fair, Sep. 15-17

Greetings,

This is just a save the date reminder for the Midwest & Great Northern Printers Fair, held at Printers Hall on the Old Thresher grounds in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, September 15-17, 2011.

If you are not familiar with this event … In Mt. Pleasant, Iowa (southeast corner of the state), Printers Hall at the Old Threshers Museum grounds will have a range of presses available for learning (Vandercook, Heidelbergs, platen presses, iron hand presses, proof press, ruling machine, steam-operated newspaper press, plus Linotypes, Ludlow, and Intertype, and paper cutters, with experienced operators on all of them.

Usually on Thursday and Friday, the equipment and operators are available and happy to talk to visitors about the presses, etc. So if there is something specific you would like to learn more about, feel free to contact one of the fellows listed on the poster, and they can help to arrange that, making sure there’s someone there who can talk to you while you are there.

There is also stuff for sale on Saturday morning, and in years past, it has included wood type, metal type, all sorts of tools for all sorts of presses, mats (I think), catalogs and books, cuts, presses, and some printwork from fellow letterpress printers.

More information about the Old Threshers grounds and museums is here: http://www.oldthreshers.org/

I have attached a photo of the poster for the event. Contact and hotel information is on the poster.

Cheers,
Celene

image: PrintersFair2011med.jpg

PrintersFair2011med.jpg

Log in to reply   6 replies so far

Hi Celene,
I can’t read the print on the flyer. Is there somewhere online where it’s posted? I’m trying to balance budget and schedule and I’m most interested in seeing which events are on each day.
Thanks!
Tony

Hey Tony,

Sorry about that. It says:

Thursday: Prnters’ Hall open for demonstration/projects at 8 am.

Friday: For security and insurance reasons there will be no vendor setup until Saturday AM. Printers’ Hall will open at 8 am for projects and demonstrations. Break for evening meal and re-open at 7 pm for the evening gathering.

Saturday: Printers’ Hall open to vendors only at 6:45 am for swap meet and set up. Printers’ Hall open to all at 8 am for swap meet. Continuation of demonstration-training. Noon lunch on your own. Food vendor will be set up outside PH. Printers’ Hall and swap meet closes at 3 pm.

I hope that helps.

image: pfaircrop.jpg

pfaircrop.jpg

This is the premier letterpress event in the Midwest every fall.

To get a better feel (and hopefully get more excited) about this event go to www.oldthreshers.org, click on Events & Attractions at the top of the home page, then scroll down and click on Printers’ Hall.

There is no fee for coming on Thursday and Friday, and just a modest $5 admission fee on Saturday morning to get into the swap meet. The motels listed above are all reasonable, but you could also consider camping on the grounds. There are bathrooms and showers available. I don’t think we could make it any more affordable than that.

Just call if you have more specific questions.

AND…….. for all those that have been to Printers’ Hall previously, we have BIG new attraction!!!!!!! It’s a letterpress that weighs in at over 16 tons!!!!!! Prepare to be amazed. It just arrived last weekend.

Rick

Thanks! I hope to be there!

Does anyone have any descriptions of what the “projects and demonstrations” have been like in years previous?

I’m very new to actually printing but not so new to a slight obsession with letterpress. :) I’m excited to go to the fair regardless (it’s the first year in the past few that I’ve actually been able to make it) but I was just curious about what all usually happened on Friday?

Thanks for the help!
Annie

There is no set schedule or specific projects. There will be a lot of printers (human) and a lot of equipment ready to operate on Thursday and Friday. We would just like people to come in and tell us what they are interested in or would like to learn about and we will do our best to teach/demonstrate those aspects of letterpress for you. Hopefully small groups will form around these activities.

It is very casual and we will simply try to address everyone’s interests and needs. If anyone has a small project in mind and something they would like to create, this is the perfect venue for this.

The BEST part is that there is no charge for this. It is our way of passing on our knowledge and hopefully giving people more confidence and experience.

I will be leaving for Printers’ Hall tonight (to get it ready and help run it during the Old Threshers Reunion next week) and probably won’t be anywhere near a computer until after Labor Day (when it ends). 10 days of playing with printing presses - it just doesn’t get any better than that!

Rick