This Weekend at Chastain Park

This weekend’s show was my first one this year that was dry both days.  Saturday was overcast in the morning, but sunny all afternoon.  Sunday was beautiful all day.  Chastain Park is a great setting for a show.  The show was set up along a tree-lined street in the middle of the park and seemed to stretch forever.  There were 190 artists and the show was full of top quality work.  The promoter did a great job in getting a good mix of categories.

Customer attendance to this first year spring show was a little disappointing.  It may need a little time to mature and the promoters need to work on their strategy to get more customers in.  However, customers were buying which made it a decent weekend.  I had quite a few residents tell me how much they appreciate us being there and were excited that an event such as this had been brought to their area.   There will also be a November show that I plan to attend.

Having all the trees behind everyone’s tent made for a nice setting.

Almost a Great Show

This weekend was my first experience at the Inman Park show, and I have decided that this one is a keeper.  Saturday was pretty much a washout.  The show opened at 11 AM and around noon, the sky decided to open also.  There was quite a large early turnout, but it kept getting darker and darker, and by noon it was so dark that the street lights came on.  It wasn’t long before the thunder and lightning started, followed by a heavy downpour that lasted the rest of the afternoon.  Many artists shut down and left for the day, but some of us waited around until about 4 PM.  There were people out walking in the rain and I still made some sales by staying a little longer.  I was so soaked by the time I got home that I even had to put my shoes in the dryer.  We had a 6:30 AM setup time and I had been up since 4 AM, so I was ready to crash.

Sunday was sunny and mid 70s all day.  The crowd was so thick that I lost sight of the street quite a few times.  This was an excellent show for me even though I only got one dry day.  Sunday sales made up for Saturday, though I can only imagine how well I would have done with two dry days.

This is a big show covering many different streets.  I was amazed at the number of artists.  I went on a little “walk about” Saturday morning and it seemed to stretch forever.  Every time I thought I had come to the end of the booths, I would turn a corner and find even more.

The tree-lined streets are very beautiful, with a mix of Victorian and bungalow style homes.  I was fortunate to be across the street from a large Victorian with some of the largest azalea bushes I have ever seen.

Looking down the street from my booth before the crowds arrived.

Inman Park This Weekend!

This is my first time at this show and I have high expectations.  I drove down there this afternoon to sort through the route according to their map.  I don’t like pulling my trailer into an area, especially in Atlanta, without seeing it first.  A missed turn in an unknown neighborhood can be a challenge when you are 30 feet long.  Fortunately, it is real easy to get to and with a Saturday 6:30 AM setup time, the streets should be empty.

As luck would have it, the local news has predicted thunderstorms this weekend.  I was relieved that tonight’s forecast now has the rain coming in Saturday evening.  This may give us a dry full day on Saturday.  Of course, they forecast severe thunderstorms at the Conyers show last month, and all we got was sunshine all day.  I’m starting to think that they are running their forecast models on an I-Phone.

I’m looking forward to seeing some friends this weekend at the show.   John and Paula at T&G Woodworking are woodworkers that I met a couple of years ago and we always run across each other at the Avondale show.  John makes beautiful boxes and I look forward to seeing his latest creations.  Kimberly Dean is a mixed media Artists and I haven’t seen her since 1996.  We worked together back in the 90s’ and lost track until we became Facebook friends last year.  

Wind, Tent, and a Sledghammer

This weekend is the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Conyers International Horse Park.  I spent most of today over there setting up my tent, twice.   I got there around 11 AM and had the tent set up in thirty minutes, but a big gust of wind came through and turned it over.  My tent is a heavy professional model which I bought so this type of thing would not happen, but never the less, it did.  This was with 400 pounds of concrete weights on it!   I had to disassemble it just to get the top turned back over and sitting back on the asphalt.   I didn’t take pictures because I was too mad and embarrassed by the whole thing.

The wind just kept pounding the area and numerous tents went flying all over the place.  I have stakes for securing it the ground, but not to asphalt.  So I ran over to Home Depot and bought heavy steel stakes and a sledgehammer.   After pounding these stakes into the asphalt, raising the tent again, and tying it off, I was just about out of juice.  My plan was to have all my products set up and ready to go, but I only had enough energy left to get the tables and shelves set up.  I’m going back over early in the morning to set the rest of the products up.  Fortunately my trailer is sitting about 30 feet behind the booth, so I don’t have to carry them very far.  I had planned to be back home by 2 PM, but I didn’t pull into the driveway until 5.  Thank goodness for the crock pot!  There was a beef roast and potatoes waiting on me that I started this morning.

Saturday is supposed to be nice and sunny, but the forecast is for rain and thunderstorms for Sunday.  This will probably make for a packed show tomorrow.

Finally Sold Out

I finally sold the last six wine snack trays this week to a repeat customer.  I made 50 of these trays up this spring because I needed to add new products to the mix, plus they are such a functional and useful item.  They sold so slowly at first that when I went to the Foothills Fall Festival, I didn’t even set them out in the booth initially.  On the second day, I was selling out of some products and was pulling everything out of my trailer to fill product holes in my booth display.  I finally set two boxes of the trays out and they immediately started selling.  I sold the remaining 10 to one customer at the Avondale show the following weekend.

I had six more sitting in the shop that were cut out and sanded, but didn’t have the finish applied yet, and I wasn’t planning to do anything with them right now.  A customer emailed and asked if I had any more, and when I told her six, she bought the rest.  Sometime between now and when my first show of 2010 kicks off in March, I will be making more.  I am probably going to mix it up a bit and add contrasting woods to give them a little more “wow” factor.  These in the pictures are curly cherry and were just too pretty to add anything else to them.  I also had walnut and ash ones.