Street Fair Recap!

Hi All,

Well, the street fair was fun! I was situated right next to a kettle corn guy who gave me free popcorn all weekend. :D I was right in front of a pakistani food joint, which would have been fine, but they insisted on blaring their (fucking) irritating music inconsiderately right in my booth. On the first day I had to ask them to turn it down 4 times because I couldn't hear my customers (or think)!!! And don't get me wrong, that music is fine for like, one or two songs, but playing it ALL day at high volume, the same cd over and over and over again...I wanted to take my wire cutters and snip the wires to their speakers. No I'm not joking.

The weather was GREAT for the street fair, and I made my booth fee, plus extra to boot, which is more than a lot of vendors there could say, I'm sure. Financially speaking, I don't think it was worth my time. But if we're talking strictly about reaching possible future customers, my work being seen AND making some sales on the side, then it was totally worth it.

However, I'm not sure I will do the UW Street Fair again, simply on the basis that it's so huge. There are *so* many vendors that participate and *so* much to see. (Most of it is the same ol' same ol' stuff you usually see at fairs.) And I found myself getting a lot of compliments on my work, but also a lot of the "we're just starting out and want to see what else there is" and "tire kickers". Also, there were a lot of kids touching my things with their grubby little hands. Only a couple parents told their children not to touch, which was nice. I wish ALL parents did that. (*I* was taught not to touch!) Anyways, it drove me up the wall. (I wanted yell at them, "don't touch the merchandise!!!" But I thought that might kind of kill my sales, so I refrained, HA.)

My mom and dad helped with the booth too! This was nice - mom would work the morning shift and dad would take her place when she left. I liked this cuz my mom has a great personality and easy to talk to, but my dad is very business-oriented and notices things that other people may not. For example, he was pointing out that people were seeing my things from across the street and making a b-line for the table. This made me happy when I started noticing it, too. :P

Now that I think about the actual literal booth, I remembered what else drove me crazy. People walking thru my booth. See, this was my first street fair, and I have only 1 table, two chairs, and a couple boxes and two fabric clothes and a canopy. My canopy is actually a lawn gazibo I got for a GREAT price, but it doesn't have side walls, or anything. I had the table pushed to the front of the booth, but people would just walk along the side of the opening between the next booth and mine and walk THRU the back of my booth. ARG. Now I know why people use side walls!! So I put up some boxes and a hand truck and draped some cloth over it to create a barrier. My dad suggested this, it was a good idea because it worked! I'm doing another fair in August and this time I think I'll hang some wall coverings I have as side walls.

So, overall I learned a lot! And I made some money that I've bought supplies with! And I know what to look for next time: 1. a booth not in front of a middle eastern food joint; 2. side walls; 3. presentation - I need more tables, and some professional display cases; and signage. And I *told* my dad I needed signage, but he didn't think I did, so....ah, c'est la vie.

I found some cute vendors from Seattle too! They're on etsy, too, which made me happy. I dunno why, but it did. lol

Laters!