Day 3: "New Hampshire: The South of the North" (Shows #5 & 6)

May 23 | Manchester, NH | 10-1

May 23 | Nashua, NH | 2-5

The start of a new weekend of yoyoing for Nate and I was in NH. Nate's family was already going up there for a trip, so I drove up and met him. I arrived to the T'R'U a half an hour early so decided to go and try to find a place where I could snag something quick to eat. I found a Wal-Mart and decided to go and get some granola bars. Almost immediately after exiting my car, I was verbally harassed. A shirtless guy in his early 20s driving a pick-up truck with another guy, also shirtless, cat-called to me, "Your ass looks nice in those jeans." I could tell from that moment that that day was not going to be one of our most positive experiences.

Discouraged, I informed Nate of my already "interesting" day. He made a point then that really stuck with us; New Hampshire is the South of the North. This is not meant with any offense to people from the South, but with Nate being from Northampton, MA and me going to school in Boston, we are both used to very liberal, open-minded environments. Although NH is in the blue North East, it is not really like what you think of politically or socially when you think of the North East. In fact, we got insulted more times in New Hampshire than any other shows we've done thus far.

Regardless, we hoped that something positive would come from these shows. We quickly found out that this would not be the case. Both of the T'R'U stores that we went to were completely dead. There was little to no foot traffic and even less interest in what we were doing. At the Manchester show, we got stuck in the Star Trek display. At the Nashua store, the manager didn't even know we were coming. These were two of our worst shows yet.

In between shows we got lunch at the only half-decent place we could find around, the 99. For an appetizer, I got a wedge salad. Apparently Nate had no what a wedge salad was and even after me explaining it to him, still doesn't really understand the concept of it. For those of you that don't know, a wedge salad is usually 1/8 a head of iceberg lettuce with dressing, blue cheese crumbles, tomatoes, and bacon bits. For those of us who favor iceberg lettuce, this is a great thing. For Nate, he just could not seem to wrap his head around the concept and why anyone would want to buy/eat it. As I put it, it's a designer part of a head of lettuce.

What else is there to say about New Hampshire? Well, nothing positive, so I guess I'll end it here.

Shoutouts goes to: my roommate Austin and his girlfriend Celia for showing up in Nashua and surprising us. You two are awesome. Also, thanks to Austin for running up to me when I was going into the store and making me think I was going to get mugged.

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Day 2: "Jeff has yo-yos on yo-yos" (Show #4)

May 17 | Framingham, MA | 2-5

After experiencing for the first time, the chain burrito store known as Chipotle, Jeff and I drive to Framingham, MA. We quickly enter and find ourselves in one of the cleanest stores we have been to yet. The manager was quick and helpful and knew just who we were. Just as we were setting up our table, Andrew Dalton arrived! It was good to see a familiar face and another yo-yoer. There were a couple of kids who stuck around and learned tricks. Altogether, it was a good day.

Shout outs are in order for Cami for coming out and visiting us and bringing a camera, Andrew for showing up and doing some rad tricks. The wonderful people at chipotle who tirelessly spend their days making delicious food, just for us to eat.

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Andrew Dalton came out to our Framingham show and hung out with us for a while. Here are a few of his tricks.

Day 2: "Jeff has yo-yos on yo-yos" (Show #3)

May 17 | Dedham, MA | 10-1

Dedham? More like DEADham.

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Nate and Jeff explain the problems with the Dedham store;
Nate does a yo-yo trick

Day 2: "Jeff has yo-yos on yo-yos" (Show #3)

May 17 | Dedham, MA | 10-1

Dedham is exactly the kind of place you would imagine if you only heard it's name. It's a town that shares a border with one of the worst parts of Boston. Needless to say, the Toys 'R' Us in such a place shared qualities similar to the entire town.

The first thing we noticed upon arriving in the parking lot was the employee cars parked all in a row and Jeff said to me "I wonder where the employees are supposed to park" or something to that effect. The store was not yet open, so I decided to play the good ol' match the employee to the vehicle game. We were informed to show up 15 minutes early, so when that time rolled around we decided to follow an employee into the exit door. A manager came to the door, and at first gave us the strangest look. Then almost simultaneously we all thought and vocalized something similar to "Yo-Yos". He was a portly man, who was mostly bald. His bright red shirt and his far too short khaki pants only made me want to chuckle more as he walked us to the area in which we would set up.

We took inventory of what they had stocked. and noticed there were only two Duncan Pulses (our most frequently sold yo-yo at this point). We requested a restock and he informed us that there were several more in the store and he would get 'someone on that' (which never happened). The display was much like the others we had seen so far. There were other brands of yo-yos including one that depicted a character from an anime/strategy game series that I later noticed children recognizing. We did our best to clean the display up as we awaited a table for our setup. What I could have only guessed was the actual manager of this store then came out briefly and asked us very kindly and with much interest how we were doing and after our table arrived, ordered one of the employees to go get us a table cloth.

This was the first show in which we realized it would be a very good idea to set up all of our yo-yos by price point, left to right with the corresponding yo-yos to try sitting in front of them. This proved to be the best way to make the walk ins who came by easily understand the product line.

The foot traffic was very slow, which I attribute to it being early on a Sunday in Dedham, Massachusetts. Some of the people that entered the store were surprised to see such a spectacle in a toy store. Most were enthused. There were several people who tried the yo-yos and reminisced about their younger days. It wasn't until afternoon that a good number of children came into the store and we began to do some teaching.

Shout out to the man that confused me with an employee and asked me where the bubbles were, and when I tried to start to explain to him that I had no idea and that I wasn't an employee said "oh yes.. your a... yo-yo".

Another shout out is in order for the yo-yo kid who showed up as we were packing up. He had a metal yo-yo clutched in his hand and two on his belt loop in yomega holsters. They were sadly all yomega yo-yos, but he did show us a neat trick in which you wrap your string around your head, and then quickly remove it. You were the coolest!

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Day 1: "Double Team" (Show #2)

May 16 | Woburn, MA | 2-5

Ahh, now this one was much better. It was still not what we were initially expecting out of these shows due to lack of advertising, but at least people showed interest.

Right when we got there, the woman at the service desk was so excited to see us. The manager came over and had someone get a table for us. We put our yoyos and the banner on the table and stood around it. The atmosphere in the store was much better and a lot of people seemed pretty interested. The table was definitely a good idea too. We taught quite a few people tricks. There wasn't a constant supply of people, but they would kind of come in waves. It was a lot more fun than the first store. We even sold more yoyos there than at any of the 4 stores we were at that weekend.

It was fine for us that there weren't people there all the time because it gave us a chance to hang out and have fun with each other. During these times, we decided to play with Imperials. Those yoyos are Walk the Dog machines. Seriously, try it. Oh, and Nate has the coolest and most stylish Walk the Dog ever. It's so nonchalant and beautiful.

As time went on, I started trying to push the limit of what I thought was possible with an Imperial. Some of the tricks that I was able to successfully hit (and bring back) were Split the Atom, Kwyjibo, and after a million tries, 3 Eli Hops. I discovered later that because of the throw I had to do with the Imperial, my arm was destroyed. It was killing me the next day. Note to self and others: do not try hard tricks with an Imperial for an hour straight.

Because this experience was so good, we got a lot more excited about the rest of our shows. We knew Framingham, MA the next day was going to be good. It actually ended up being the best so far.

Anyways, shoutout goes to: the girl working at register 4. You tried hitting on Nate, but he wasn't paying attention, so I stepped in. You even said goodbye to us as we were leaving. You were so nice and were totally crushin' on us. Come to some of our other shows. We'll hang out.

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Day 1: "Double Team" (Show #1)

May 16 | Peabody, MA | 10-1

Our first show! How exciting! ....or so we thought.

Peabody was really disappointing for us. Here's some of the things we were expecting when we got there: a crowd (even if it was small), the manager to be at least somewhat excited that we were there, an endcap full of Duncan yo-yos, and to have a good location to demonstrate in. Here's what we got: nobody there but regular foot traffic; a very lackluster manager; an endcap with Duncans, Yomegas, YoYoBalls, some anime yo-yos, and some really cheap, crappy wooden ones; and tossed aside like a second thought.

One major problem with this show that we would later find to be true with all the shows is the lack of advertising. You would think that if a company was sending representatives to your store to demonstrate product and help your sales, you would let people know. Instead, we just ended up as some memo on the desk of the store manager and that's it. I don't know if the problem is with corporate or with the individual stores, but either way, this whole thing was handled really poorly and that's a damn shame. Not only for us as demonstrators, but also for the stores, yo-yo sales, and for getting more people into yo-yoing.

With that out of the way, the first big issue was that we really didn't know what to do or how to set up. So, we set ourselves near the yo-yo endcap with just a banner. The directions on what to do that we were given by Duncan were for if we had a crowd. Which, of course, we did not at all. So, we just hung around, yo-yoed, and greeted people who seemed semi interested. For the people who didn't just keep walking, we asked if they wanted to try. Most people seemed really not interested. It also didn't help that the people who were coming in were mostly either parents without their kids or people on a mission for what toys they wanted. There were a few exceptions to this, but we were off to a rough start.

I guess there's not much else to say about this demo. It was pretty dull. Oh and going along with the dull theme, apparently they don't play music in T'R'U's. Whatever. At any rate, we were pretty glad to get out of that store and were really hoping that the next one would be better.

Shoutouts go to: that really cute 20-something Asian girl who was totally interested in learning tricks and who Nate and I were interested in doing tricks to (if you catch my drift), that random guy wanting a Metal Zero, that employee who reminded us of Meredith from The Office, and last, but definitely not least, Mike R. Mike R was an employee that was totally awesome. He was what we thought that toy store employees should be like. He also hung around with us for a while and learned some yo-yo tricks. He even got as advanced as Braintwister! Mike R, we love you.

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Quick video from our Peabody show.

It started on a friday

I left my home in Northampton, MA not knowing what to expect. It took a good hour to get out to Millbury, MA where my partner in yoing (Jeff Coons) resides. Riding across the state along highway 90 I imagined what these shows would be like; if the audience would have any interest, if there would be an audience, and if there was would it would be different from the mom and pop toy store where I work. I arrived, after only losing track of where we were going once or twice, to the Coons residence. Jeff told me we had received a package from Duncan Yo-yos! Inside was our kit for the next 6 weeks of shows! There were dragonflies, imperials, butterflies, freehand 2's, stickers, temporary tattoos, shirts, and best of all, heart shaped string cutters that said "Duncan equals love". Jeff told me that the string cutters weren't to be distributed during the Toys 'R' Us shows because of the sharp and miniature string razor blade embedded in each of these plastic hearts. I ate some delicious curry and we played yo-yos late into the night.

Introduction

As you may or may not know, Duncan and Toys'R'Us recently signed some sort of big deal BUSINESS TALK BUSINESS TALK I don't really know exactly what it is. What I do understand from it though is that T'R'U is now carrying a good amount of Duncan yo-yos. They have the Butterfly, Imperial, Reflex, Pulse, Dragonfly, Speed Beetle, and FreeHand 2.

In addition to this, Duncan is sending around demonstrators to most of the major T'R'U stores around the country. Duncan Crew USA members Nate Sutter and Jeff Coons (that's me) are doing shows at T'R'U's in MA, NH, CT, RI, and NY. In between those times, we also have a gig up in ME and are planning on going to the Canadian National Yo-Yo Contest. Basically, we are spending every weekend starting 5/16-5/17 until 6/27-6/28 together. We decided that we are going to blog about the shows that we're doing, kind of like a tour journal.

On the right side is our calendar that has all the dates and locations of the shows we're doing. We'd love to see you come out! Also on the right are Nate and I's Twitter feeds. When we are doing shows you will be able to see more frequent updates on what's going on.

We also decided that for each show, we are going to do shoutouts and try to post as many pictures and/or as much video as we get!

So, get excited for Nate + Jeff = Awesome All The Time!