In deference to David Haberstich, who correctly pointed out the thread title was a bit misleading, I've changed the title of the thread slightly. One previous post pointed to examples in Memphis and Louisville that could have been interpreted as competition but were in fact collaborations. Large scale events such as those described could only be pulled off through advance planning and communication. Is it possible that those audiences intepreted five quilt exhibits as museums competing? I hope not. A situation that occurred in this community not long ago illustrates the type of wasteful competiton that I mean. We do a program that we call the "make-n-take" workshop for kids. They make a historical toy or game and take it home. Fairly straightforward. Lo and behold, after we had ran this program (once a month on Saturdays) I looked in the newspaper and two different entities were doing the same workshop as us on the same day! One entity even called their program "Make-It-and-Take-It." It was silly, wasteful, competition. We haven't completely solved the the issue, but we have been in contact with one of the entities and decided to join forces to offer staggered weekend activities so that kids (and parents) aren't forced to choose between entities, and the kids have more to look forward to. Jay Smith Reno County Museum Hutchinson, Kansas