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Chattanooga: Waiting to be appraised

By: Elizabeth Ryan
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It’s the A-list event of the summer with celebrities flying in from New York and Boston, and an invitation-only crowd thinking about not what to wear, but what to bear.

“A-list,” of course, means antiques, as in “Antiques Roadshow.” And it’s coming to Chattanooga.

At the Chattanooga Convention Center on Saturday, about 7,000 lucky voucher holders will get the chance to learn the history and value of their antiques from celebrity appraisers such as Keno Brothers and J. Michael Flanigan, experts in American furniture. Now entering its 13th season, the “Roadshow” is the No. 1 program on PBS, drawing 11 million viewers a week with its folksy mix of history and suspense when the object’s value finally is revealed.

“Everyone I talk to is saying, ‘I can’t wait; it’s going to be awesome,’” said Paul Grove, president and CEO of local PBS station WTCI.

Since taking over the leadership for the local PBS station two years ago, Mr. Grove said he has been campaigning to bring the show to Chattanooga. With a limited schedule — the event only travels to six cities each summer — the “Roadshow” is booked two years in advance and carefully selects markets based on the city’s ability to accommodate huge crowds and for unique stories they might produce.

“Roadshow” executive producer Marsha Bemko said it was the stories Mr. Grove told her about Chattanooga’s Coca-Cola heritage, the Trail of Tears and Civil War history that put the city on her radar. When another city unexpectedly dropped out of the schedule, she turned to her colleagues and said, “Let’s get to Chattanooga.”

City’s story

Attracting such a well-known event is about more than just giving local fans a way to experience the show, Mr. Grove said.

“This is a wonderful way to spread the incredible story of Chattanooga and the incredible revitalization that has gone on here,” he said.

The “Roadshow” will attract an estimated 1,700 visitors to the city, a bump that could generate as much as $306,000 a day in revenue for local restaurants and hotels, according to Tim Riddle, executive director of the Chattanooga Convention Center.

To handle the overwhelming demand for tickets, the show started ticketing the event via lottery after Season 5. For Chattanooga, more than 16,000 people applied, Mr. Grove said. Voucher holders are assigned a time, and then evaluators meet each person and perform a kind of antiques triage — jewelry? over there; Civil War relics? over here; artwork? right there — so they can meet with one of the 75 appraisers who travel with the show for a one-on-one evaluation of the objects.

But the show wasn’t always such a crowd-pleaser.

Licensed from the BBC, the show launched in 1995 and traveled to 13 cities its first summer. Almost no one showed up. Indeed, staff members resorted to calling their friends and family to fill the episodes, Ms. Bemko said.

Then the show aired.

The following summer, more than 10,000 fans slept outside in Los Angeles to line up for tickets. The LAPD threatened to shut the show down because of fan traffic on freeways.

Minidrama moments

The show’s success might seem surprising to those unfamiliar with it, but fans say they’re sucked in by the three-minute minidramas — the astonishing history of Aunt Millie’s clock or the sword that Grandpa left you, while the question of “How much is it worth” dangles in the air.

It’s the same fantasy that motivates beachcombers and pirates, except the treasures here are those masquerading as everyday objects and awaiting discovery in garages and attics across America.

“Do you know what’s so neat about it? It’s one thing for you; it’s another thing for me,” Ms. Bemko said. “People get so many different things from it. And I think part of it is that we’re teaching people things that are, ‘Who knew?,’” she said.

The payoff for the attention is the quintessential “Roadshow moment,” the glazed look of the person who just hit the jackpot with something that’s been slung over the back of the chair for 25 years and is worth $25,000.

Best moment

Perhaps the most famous starred Ted from Tucson, Ariz., who discovered that an old wool blanket he owned for decades was a rare Navajo chief’s blanket valued between $350,000 and $500,000. The find was the highest-appraised item in the show’s history, but it’s stories like this that make believers out of the rest of its viewers — the faith that it could happen to you, too.

Fans insist, though, that more alluring than the money are the stories the show uncovers. And the program’s continued knack at unearthing unique objects continues to wow even its veteran staffers.

Ms. Bemko said one of her favorite objects from this summer is a dress Marilyn Monroe was stitched into for her role in the film “Some Like It Hot,” a find uncovered during the show’s recent stop in Palm Springs, Calif.

“It’s touching the things have such history and have witnessed so much,” she said. “That dress witnessed Marilyn being naked inside it.”

Because it was such a well-known dress, it was appraised at between $150,000 and $200,000 on the “Roadshow.”

Capturing these stories and wrangling the crowds is a feat that Ms. Bemko and her staff have spent a decade perfecting.

“It’s a day at the three-ring circus,” Ms. Bemko said.

Ms. Bemko agrees with fans, saying the show’s most important impact isn’t about the money, it’s the energy the event generates.

“There’s just no substitute for feeling the day,” Ms. Bemko said. “You don’t have to be working on the show to feel it. You’ll feel it.”

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