AC Dickson: eBay Power Seller

« Tori Spelling's Life for Sale | Main | You Tube »

Wham-bam-thank you Amsterdam
by acdickson

Greetings, from a luxurious houseboat on a quiet canal in Amsterdam. It's nirvana, pure bliss, and a much needed, well-deserved respite from the last week.

The last week? 6 seminars in 6 nights. Susan and AC were lucky enough to be invited to the Noorderzon theater crossover festival in Groningen. Nestled in the northern part of Holland, Groningen is a nice spot. A college town of about 200,000, it's easy to walk from one side to the other in half an hour and is jammed with shops, bars, restaurants, and bikes. Like most cities over here, it's ringed by a beautiful canal.

The festival was modestly described to us as 'little' by the festival director. Ha! We arrived on a Saturday and wandered in our jet-lagged haze across town to the vast city park. The festival had taken over. We turned up at 10pm and couldn't believe our eyes. Thousands of people eating, drinking, listening to live music, watching street performers, streaming in and out of theater tents. It was crazy! It was the town's big summer festival, only with a heavy dose of performance art.

The AC show set up shop in a Spiegeltent, essentially a mirrored cabaret tent that travels to wherever the fun is.
The tent had a handsome bar at one end, a lavish stage on the other, and tables and chairs for a few hundred in between. A more than adequate place to spread the eBay gospel.

The week run went quite well (or "quite all right" as the Dutch like to say.) I was a bit surprised when we were asked to do 6 shows. I didn't expect there would be enough audience, after all, AC isn't exactly a household name in Holland, and eBay is just gaining a foothold over here after buying the competition Markt Plaats. http://www.marktplaats.nl/

But come they did. Every night a few more, until the last 3 shows were sold out completely. At first I thought the Dutch audiences were a little shy, but by week's end AC was talking just a bit slower, leaning on the jokes that worked the best, dancing with an extra pep in the step, and wouldn't you know it the audiences rose to the occasion. By the 5th night, people didn't even bother to raise their hand to talk or ask a question. They just spoke up. Which is how AC likes it.

The festival was a freaks come out at night kind of thing. The first shows didn't start until evening and most of our shows were at 10:30 pm. We'd usually finish up about midnight, grab a dinner in our dressing room and mosey back into the tent for a drink. Around 1:30 the tent would fill up again for the nightly artists and festival crew late night party. Every night. Until 6 or so. AC and Susan, needing our beauty sleep, never made it past 4.

It was more than quite all right.

And now Amsterdam. In many ways the anti-Los Angeles. You don't need a car, it's super compact and everyone bikes. Water is everywhere, in the air, in the canals. Someone I met said prophetically that it's the city of future. When we run out of oil all cities will resemble Amsterdam. You'll bike everywhere and use the canals to move heavy stuff. I could get used to that. The living is easy.

AC and Susan have passed the time walking to Indonesian restaurants for ten-course meals, looking for bargains at vintage stores (polyester ties!), enjoying the photo museum for a spectacular exhibit of American photography, and strolling along the canals in quiet, cool parts of town with not a red light or tourist in sight. And did I mention that the coffee is amazing?

We get on a plane momentarily and head back to the anti-Amsterdam.

Pictures coming!

Comments