So often, in the collectible world, I will participate in conversations with collectors and we will share information about celebrity appearances. Inevitably, the quote that is most often spoken is, "I wish I knew that." or "How do I find these things out?" One of the interesting things about autograph collecting is that finding out where celebrities are appearing is actually a challenge unless you are on email lists with collector companies, you attend a ton of shows or you work in the industry. Occasionally, you will find information via an internet search engine or in your local newspapers, but even those avenues are not a consistent reliable source.
However, don't fret, thanks to a gentleman in Connecticut, there is a fantastic website to find out all this information. In my experience his website lists about 95% of all celebrity appearances in the United States and Canada. Some of the information is sent to him from collectors and most right from the promoters themselves. The name of the website is www.signingshotline.com.
The website is very comprehensive and has improved every year. You can find an athlete appearance in a variety of ways. You can look up an appearance by professional team, award winners, dates, states, college team and many more ways. You can receive daily updates for celebrity appearances via email.
There are free usage aspects to the website, but I recommend subscribing as you will receive more updated and pertinent information. I have the $24.95 a year plan which ends up paying for itself. You see, for some events if you are a member of signingshotline.com you can print out coupons to save money at autograph events. I usually save about $75 a year with those coupons.
So in addition to checking your local newspaper, joining an company's email list, consider signing up for signingshotline.com and stop feeling like you are out of the loop.
