Over the weekend the Sugarloaf Crafts Festivals hosted its first show of the spring season in Somerset, New Jersey. And in typical spring fashion, with a little rain, attendance bloomed (and boomed!).

The more than 250 artists at the show were delighted to see droves of craft lovers at the Garden State Exhibit Center despite some wet weekend weather. Attendance was up by 18 percent compared to last year, and individual booth sales increased by over 30 percent!

Clearly, this past weekends was the “perfect storm” for Sugarloaf.

Sugarloaf’s spring season continues this weekend in Oaks, PA, with four more shows through the end of April.

The official start of Spring might not be until next week, but don’t tell that to the more than 60,000 folks who poured into the Maryland Home & Garden Show the last two weekends.

The Show producers reported record turnout, with the highest attendance they’ve seen at any one Show day over the past five years. They also celebrated the success of their new partnership with Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake, and its Garden Preview Party (attended by The Sun’s Sloane Brown and by local maven Diane Macklin).

With even more coverage by WJZ-TV, WBAL-TV’s Sandra Shaw, local Patch.com hubs, The Carroll County Times, and Patuxent Publishing’s family of community newspapers (to name a few) – there was no question that that Spring was in the air.

And by “aweigh,” we mean “a way up!” As in attendance.

The 55th New England Boat Show at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center offers nine days of summer fun to snowy, soggy New Englanders - and they are coming out in record numbers. The show’s first weekend boasted a 38% increase in attendance over last year, with exhibitors reporting some of their strongest sales in years. That’s great news for the show and for the boating community (as well as the media relations firm for the show - us!).  Event organizers are already signing exhibitors for next year’s show with plans to expand with even more boats and entertainment. The show continues through this coming weekend.

As do we.

Here. There. And everywhere. Some of our clients had event-filled days this past weekend, so we were on call, in the trenches, and out of town.

The Woodworking and D.I.Y. Show traveled to St. Louis, where throngs of do-it-yourselfers flocked to see the latest gadgets and gizmos for their home workshops and a meet-and-greet with Tommy Mac, host of Rough Cut-Woodworking on PBS.

Dr. Helen Fisher, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Internet dating site Chemistry.com, spoke to a packed house at the Maryland Science Center about the science of love.

The Contemporary Museum hosted its annual Winter Party, a three-part evening featuring the opening of its new exhibit, Agitated Histories, cocktails and dinner, and a late-night dance party.

On Sunday morning, the Contemporary’s monthly Café event introduced art lovers to Kendall Bruns, who created the latest installation in “New View” window exhibit series.

Onto another week.

The Super Bowl weekend was super for some clients with some super media coverage of their events.

The 32^nd Annual Atlantic City International Boat Show docked at the Convention Center where reporters were eager to take a break from winter weather woes and get a glimpse of summer.

FOX29 in Philadelphia interviewed exhibitors to find the coolest maritime-must haves. NBC10’s Byron Scott interviewed show manager Jon Pritko about why winter is the best time to buy a boat. Jon also made an appearance via Skype on CBS3’s Talk Philly Show and was interviewed by the New Jersey Network. ABC6 and FLN (the Fine Living Network) came to take a look at the Show’s Queen, and earlier in the week WMGM-TV covered the move-in.

In Columbus, Ohio, the Woodworking & D.I.Y Show set up temporary shop in-studio at FOX28, and the Ohio News Network shared some handy do-it-yourself tips with viewers. Reporter Jim Weiker of the Ohio Dispatch spent a few hours at the Show on Saturday.

We were super busy, but got some super media hits. The results were super, too. The number of visitors at the Boat Show was up 114% from last year, and The Woodworking Show recorded its highest attendance in five years.

There was heavy snow and icy streets outside the Baltimore Convention Center this past weekend, but inside it was all about summer. Tens of thousands of eager boaters were thinking of the warm sun and boating fun at the 57th annual Baltimore Boat Show.

A boatload of media was on hand, too.  FOX 45 filmed live segments for Hometown Hotspots and WJZ’s Ron Matz checked out some antique racing boats on Friday morning.   WBAL and WJZ went live from the show again on Sunday morning.

Here is the Friday morning live segment with WJZ and Ron Matz.

Here is the Sunday morning live segment with WBAL.

Here are the two live segments from Sunday morning with WJZ.

Snow may have blanketed the southeast this past weekend, but it was sawdust that coated the floor of the Maryland State Fairgrounds; the Woodworking & D.I.Y Shows kicked off its “Big Ten” Spring tour in our hometown.  Thousands of hobbyists and craftsman came to test drive the latest tools from national manufacturers, hear from nationally known woodworking experts, and marvel at row after row of whirling, spinning, and cutting magic.

Snow and sawdust weren’t the only coverage - a flurry of Baltimore media helped spread the word about the wood.  FOX 45 filmed a live segment for Hometown Hotspots on Monday morning, WBAL-TV’s Kim Dacey tried her hand at refinishing, and WJZ’s Mike Schuh reported live from the Show on Saturday.

It’s pretty good to wake up to a TV reporter referring to one of your clients as “a very good friend of ours,” followed by “this is going to be fantastic.” So this was a good morning - the Maryland Science Center’s Jim O’Leary was interviewed by Ron Matz from WJZ-TV about the IMAX Film Festival that starts today.

A lot of other media also think the festival will be fantastic, including the Baltimore Sun, City Paper, and Examiner.

We’re only a few days into the new year and there’s already a symphony of good news for the Contemporary Museum’s Mobtown Modern music series. The Aaron Copland Fund for Music noted Mobtown Modern’s work to improve public knowledge of contemporary American music by awarding the program a generous grant. When the Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith conducted his “Top 10 classical music events in 2010,” Mobtown Modern’s “Rite of Swing” concert was part of the ensemble. As a crescendo

, Urbanite’s January issue accented the duet

between Mobtown Modern and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the performance of Phillip Glass’ Glassworks on January 12.

Now that’s what we like to hear! Score!

There are quite a few yawns around the office today; many of us were up at 2 am to watch the solstice lunar eclipse that slowly darkened the moon and then turned it an awesome orange. (Sounds a lot like public relations – transforming something seen every day into a newsworthy, momentous occasion that gets people talking.)

More than 250 brave Baltimoreans bundled up to view the eclipse live at the Maryland Science Center. And unlike the moon, Baltimore media did not hide from view, using the Science Center as a credible and interesting source of eclipse information. Check out the article in the Baltimore Sun, the PBS NewsHour website, and on WJZ-TV.