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Monday, July 17, 2006

My latest craft show experience part 1

Welcome to the latest installment of my craft show journey. The picture on the side was my setup for the first day of the show. This was a two day juried show.

The morning I had to leave my ride was late. We got the car all packed up and were on our way. We made pretty good time until we got lost. We stopped to get gas and asked USPS employee for directions. In about ten minutes, we had arrived.
Once there, I found they had moved me yet again. That was number 5. I finally found my space and set up. Surprisingly enough, it only took me an hour. I was finished well ahead of schedule. While setting up, there was a little bit of drama. One lady refused to move her truck when told her space had changed. Another was a little upset about that. The drama had begun.

Since I had finished my setup early, I decided to take a quick tour of the craft booths. Actually, I was just spying. I began to count the jewelry vendors. It turned out there were 21 jewelry vendors in attendance at this show. I also noticed there were many re-sellers there. I thought this was supposed to be a juried show?! People were starting to roll in so I went back to my booth.

After a few hours of cloudy weather, it began to rain. Great! All the attendees rushed for cover. This was the beginning of the slow down period which lasted for the rest of the day. Crowd attendance was supposed to be 10,000 people on this day. I doubt they reached this mark. I also learned, from potential customers, that they didn't know anything about the craft show. It had not appeared in the newspaper ad or on the radio. What kind of show was this?!

After 12 hours of being there, I closed my tent for the night and headed for the hotel. What a hotel it was! I found out later it had had an hourly rate up until recently. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. Stay tuned for part 2 of what was turning out to be the worst craft show in my journey. Posted by Picasa

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