Musikfest Day 3

And there is still a week left folks...

At least the rains stayed away. That means sales were steady. Not quite enough to make up for Saturday's rain soaked day, but still stronger than I expected.

There are some very unhappy people. I have decent sales because I have built a wonderful, loyal following of people who come and make their "yearly purchase" at my booth. If enough repeat customers come, and a enough new faces show up, then I am happy. But some new people are starting from the bottom and are trying to build a following. It takes a while, and with the rains, this show is slower than usual. Some people expect it to be eleven hours a day of non stop sales. It is not. It is an endurance event. For me it all adds up in the end, but it is a marathon to get there, not a sprint.

And I think it depends on how the dates fall. I have had quite a few lookers who will be back next weekend because they get paid Wednesday. More and more people are living week to week as gas prices go higher and higher and food prices skyrocket. Some people even only get paid bi-monthly and things get short at the end. I think this year my better sale weekend will be weekend 2, where other years it is weekend 1.. it as all about the calendar and the weather.

But back to being unhappy... I don't understand a blind faith jump into a ten day event, no matter how much a promoter says it is a good thing. Look up other vendors and read their blogs, ask them how they do, go and look and see how much is being sold on Wednesday at 3 pm and om Friday at 9 pm and that should show you the extremes. I had a gentleman stop by my booth ans ask me how I was doing, I told him the truth, that the rains slowed things down. He told me he was from two hours away and was "thinking of doing this show"... I explained it is 11 hour days of being open to the public- so add some time for set up and clean up each day, and any drive to a hotel or home and imagine it for 5 or 10 days straight. Think if it in context... he decided that it probably wasn't the place for him.

Imagine this....pop a tent in your yard. Every morning pack a days worth of food. You can eat or drink nothing more than you pack because outside food s expensive and hard to get too. Don't pack too much or it goes bad in the cooler and you waste it and waste money. You can only go to the bathroom when a neighbor stops and offers to sit in your tent while you walk down the block and back because that is the closest bathroom. Do this from 12 noon to 11 pm. Rain or shine. That is the start of knowing how we feel as vendors.

OK.. off to pack inventory and start a sunny day four!