munkinarts.com: the blog

I had my first show of the year today, stArt on the Street: Spring Edition.  We’ll call it Start for short because it was a long day and that’s really all I want to type, but you get the idea.

This is by far one of THE most well run shows I do all year.   The crew that puts it together does a great job from organization to advertising to the actual day of operations, right down to helping coordinate the load out in an orderly manner.   With nearly 200 vendors and street closures involved, this is no small task.

My wife helped me out immensely today, getting up early with me and driving all of us over to drop me and my stuff off, then hanging out for a bit to set up.

Once I got everything set up, I realized I have less on hand than I thought, but it was still a healthy mix of old inventory and new stuff, including a lovely ladybug plate I made a while back, and my new back scratchers.    Tent went up, glass was put out and then…..well, not much of anything.

To start with, it was downright chilly today.  Sixties all day and overcast, so not quite gloomy, but not sunshine either.    I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but luckily had the good sense to bring a jacket.   I really should have brought a hat too, particularly since ultimately I ended up with a sunburn.

Despite the weather, however, the event was well attended.    I’m horrible at estimating people counts, but I’d say well over a thousand people filtered through, very likely more.

But, of all those people, I had one sale.   One.   For a whopping $4 and the state gets 6.25% of that.   The upside is that the booth fee was only $40, but still, not good.

I don’t know about the entire show’s results, and according to my neighbor at the end of the day she had a good day, but it appeared that there were far more people not carrying purchases than those that were, it didn’t look like a banner day for most.    The attendees for these show tend to be fairly ecologically minded, so it’s possible a lot of purchases were pocketed, pursed, etc, but really, it didn’t seem to be going well.   In fact, from what I was told, one of the vendors a couple stalls down was actually in tears over the poor sales.

The one seller I know had a good day was the kettle corn guy.    I can’t say I blame anyone there, it smelled heavenly.

The highlight of my day, cold, tired, a little sore, was that I happen to carry chemical warmer packs in my travel boxes and was able to stash one in each pocket to help take off the chill.

Most of the customers were perfectly lovely.   Polite, having a look, oohing and ahhing, picking things up, occasionally asking questions.    And in case you’re wondering, my prices really aren’t too horrible.   My pendants I had listed for $30, and those were strung on a nice, though low cost, chain and clasp.  My hair sticks I put out for $20 a piece, and they had a pretty decent amount of fondling, so the price may not have been a key deterrent.    Even my marbles…I had then ranging from $5-$80, so something for everybody.

But there was one customer attendee that really got on my nerves.   She pointed out that if I sold my pendants for $10 each I’d likely sell much more of them and seemed quite delighted to give this free economics lesson.  By way of example she pointed to the cheap piece of jewelry she had on her wrist (colored aluminum perhaps) and pointed out that she can buy those for $2 and sell it for $10 making a tidy profit.   Even after explaining that one of my pendants took about an hour to make, she still seemed to think that I should sell my pendants for only 10 dollars each.   I was as polite as I could be, though given I was about 3.5 hours into the 5 hour show and a little defeated already, I was less than pleased to have this discussion with her.   So while I nodded politely, what I should have said was that if I wanted to sell soulless mass imported crap I’d open a big box craft store, but I held my tongue.   I’m tempted to print up cards with a QR code leading to my post on costs to hand out to folks suggesting discount store pricing.

Given the way the day went, I’m not sure I even want to do any more shows this year.    I’ve pre-paid for the fall edition of the Start event, however, and there’s at least one other that is also a music festival, so at least I get entertainment for the day.  But given my bang up sales, you have to wonder if it’s really worth it to load the car, inconvenience my wife by sticking her with the kids solo for the day AND returning to give me a lunch/bio break, spending the day away from my family for a loss on the day, and then doing the break down.   They say you can’t make any money if you don’t take the risk, but really, with the down economy and competition from imports, I’m starting to feel that an up tick isn’t anywhere on the horizon yet.

So that was my day.   Precious little upside at all today, though I did run into the owner of a store I have glass in on consignment.   I need to make up some stuff to bring out to her to swap out sooner than later.    This really is an upside since she was concerned about her own shop’s sales in general last time I was out.   The fact she’s still in business is a glimmer of hope.