Valentine's Day Weekend Show, Part 2
Well, we've had a few days to "recover" from this weekend's event. It always takes me a couple of days to "come down" after these events... part of which has to do with being very much an introvert who prefers to stay at home, most of the time.
The event stage at the venue
All in all, it was pretty decent for a "first time event."
The Palindrome is attached to a local wine and cider maker's premises, and is usually used for events like weddings, graduation parties and workshops.
The intent behind this weekend's event was not only to have an arts and crafts show, but also to find ways for the "hosts" to get additional traffic and business for their adjacent "tasting room," which has evidently been having a hard time drawing a crowd.
In general, it seemed like a pretty good idea, as it was a way for many people to benefit.
Local artists in our town don't necessarily have very many outlets... we mainly have a few "big" fairs/markets over the course of the year, so something that might become a regular monthly fixture is actually a very welcome thing!
The idea of having a show the weekend before Valentine's Day was definitely a good one, while the fact that the dates happened to be in direct competition with the Superbowl... basically meant that the visitor count was really good on Saturday, but almost nothing on Sunday.
Yes, We Sold a Few Things
Whereas I can't exactly say that we "cleaned up," we did sell quite a few things, and it was definitely good enough to be worth our while... and we'd be happy to do it again, if we get invited back!
The venue holds about 20 vendors with a little "elbow room" to spare, so that's probably going to be the format they will follow IF this becomes a regular fixture in our calendar.
Of course, the owners of the winery have to approve the idea before anything might happen in the future.
And it takes a lot of work and effort to put on something like this, and the two energetic 30-something women who came up with the idea do have jobs, families and so forth to keep up with, so we'll just have to wait and see what the future brings!
Back to Work!
Now I get to go "back to work" at building my listings in my online Etsy shop, and generally "building inventory" for the summer show season.
Although I have definitely not given up on building online sales, this show was — once again — a reminder of just how popular Alchemy Stones are... WHEN people can actually see them in person, pick them up and examine the details, firsthand.
One of the things I am considering now is adding brief video clips to my online listings. Both eBay and Etsy now allows sellers to upload 10-15 second video clips with each listing. I realize it would be a lot of work to create 100's of video clips, but perhaps it would make a difference.
Perhaps I will just start with doing videos for the more "upscale" items!
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