Archive for September, 2009
Cranking it up a notch
It’s only a few weeks until the Foothills Fall Festival and I’m in semi-panic mode. The new cutting board designs completely sold out at the Sandy Springs Festival, so I need to create another batch. The challenge I am facing is I have the Avondale Autumn Fest the weekend after the Tennessee show leaving me with about three days between shows. This doesn’t leave me with enough time to replenish inventory before Avondale, which means I need to have enough products for both shows by the time I leave for Tennessee.
Every show is different and it varies wildly which products sell the best from show to show. I think the price points on the new face grain ones, at $30, is the driving factor, not to mention that they are pretty. I sold out of them at the last two shows, so I figure that I need about 40 of various wood combinations. I also need more long bread boards because the quantity is getting low. For some reason the solid walnut end grain boards have moved rather quickly at the last two shows. This is my most expensive board, and also very popular with the guys. Here again, I sold my last one at Sandy Springs.
I spent today working off my cut list, cutting strips for the face grain boards until I ran out of wood. This only gave me enough strips for 10 boards. Since I am also out of 1 ½” walnut needed for more end grain boards, I need to make a trip to Peach State Lumber tomorrow to load up. I’ve never tried to create this much inventory in such a short period of time, so I am rearranging the shop slightly to accommodate the increase in inventory. I need more clear space to sit all these clamped boards while the glue dries. I guess you could say that this is a good problem to have, but it’s still a little intense.
Tuesday Finally!
I’m glad it’s Tuesday. I seem to wander around in a daze on Monday after a show, with very little energy or interest. I did get wood strips glued up Monday afternoon and in the clamps for a custom order from the show. By doing this, I was able to get the two boards finished and oiled today. I have a few different custom orders to fill from the show and these are the first ones to be completed.
Sandy Springs Festival
The Sandy Springs Festival was an interesting show. Saturday morning was threatened with rain, which impacted customer participation. At about 2PM, the sky opened and the rain came down in buckets. It poured and poured until show personnel finally canceled the rest of the day around 3PM. The good news is that Sunday almost made up for it. The day was nice and sunny and I think all of Sandy Springs turned out for it. You couldn’t stir them with a stick, and everyone came out to buy something. It was a busy and lucrative day for most.
I have to hand it to the show personnel; this was the best run show I have ever attended. There were a lot of volunteers and everyone seemed to know what to do and when to do it. From the Friday night setup to Sunday night tear down, they kept everything organized and traffic flowing. I have never seen this many artists on one street and no traffic jams. The show personnel were beyond friendly and helpful, and they kept coming around all day to hand out cold water. This show is definitely a keeper for me.
To all my customers who find their way to this site, thanks for your business. Your patrionage helped make the show a great success for me and I hope you will remember my products when Christmas shopping this year. Regards!
Early Saturday morning before the crowds
This was the first show using my new shelves. My old shelving system took about 30 minutes to assemble. There is no assembly required for these and it only took a couple minutes to set them up. I am so excited about this change.
The new shelves
The new shelves handle more product, freeing up my tables for other items. I’m am going to add more shelves on this side soon which will allow me to get rid of one table and utilize the empty vertical space. I never seem to be satisfied with the layout of my booth and i’m always tweeking it. The biggest problem is not having enough space on the left side for all the items I want to include at a show. I hope to have this resolved in a couple of weeks. I’ve only been working on a solution for over a year.
Back to Work This Weekend
Another weekend is coming up, bringing with it yet another show. This weekend is the Sandy Springs Festival, just North of Atlanta. The Sandy Springs Festival is ordinarily a large festival with 20,000+ attendees; however rain is in the forecast for this weekend so it could be good or bad. If 22 inches of rain last weekend wasn’t enough, here we go again. Fortunately, as we get closer to Saturday, the forecast keeps sliding around as to the amount and time. I can only hope that it doesn’t show up until Saturday night.
I’ve been camped out in the shop for the past two weeks replacing inventory that was sold during the Paulding Meadows Festival. Between days of waiting for glue to dry, I have also been building new shelving for my booth display. The old shelves worked well once they were assembled, but it was a poor design that took up too much space while traveling and took way too much time to assemble and disassemble. The new ones only take a couple of minutes to set up and hold more product. I will post pictures of the booth and new shelves this weekend once I get it set up. This show is a little challenging because setup is after 8PM on Friday. It will be dark by the time I get set up.
Customers come to shows and see us sitting in booths, chilling out, and looking like happy campers. What they don’t see is the loading of trailers, trucks, or vans the day before the show with product, canopy, and displays. We drive to the show, usually the day before, and wait in line for a spot to park close to our assigned space to unload everything we carefully loaded hours or days before. Sometimes we unload and setup in the rain, sometimes in cold, and sometimes in both. We revel in our good fortune when we have sun and warm weather, and we hunker down and find ways to put on a smile during bad shows. We watch the local weather channel like hawks and pray that 50% chance of rain will actually mean good weather. At the end of the show, we break everything down, wait in line to pull our transport up to our booth, and carefully load it all back up again. Oh, but the life of an artist and crafter. If people only knew what we go through bring our handcrafted products to the masses.
Paulding Meadows Festival
I have to say that the Paulding Meadows show was the best one I have done this year. The weather was perfect, the crowd was large, and people came to spend money. Artist participation was very good and provided a wide variety of handcrafted items to choose from. Many times at these shows I see the same old stuff, but there were a lot of new and refreshing things to look at this weekend. I think this contributed to the amount of purchased items being carried out by customers.
Saturday was mild and sunny most of the day and the turnout looked like I285 during rush hour. Sunday was also mild, but overcast all day with a few sprinkles a couple of times during the day, but not heavy enough for anyone to be concerned about it. The crowd was not as large, but there was still good participation. This was my first time at this show, and it will definitely be a keeper for me, especially since it’s only 15 minutes from home. It’s a little tight to get into for those of us pulling trailers, but it was nice being able to park the trailer behind my booth all weekend. Not many shows have the space to allow this.
