The Lenoir City Show

I couldn’t ask for a nicer venue than the Lenoir City Festival.  I was literally steps from the lake and the view was beautiful.  The weather this weekend was slightly overcast to sunny.  Saturday was humid, but there was a slight breeze coming across the peninsula that made it bearable.  It didn’t start raining until around 4:30 on Sunday when we were breaking down.  It poured buckets.  And even with my full rain suite, I was still soaked when I got home.  Load in and out was very easy and the staff was wonderful to work with.  This is a really nice show to do.

I was amazed at the number of Georgia artists.  I met at least five from Georgia and one lady, a couple booths down from me, had been next to me at the Smyrna festival a couple of years ago.  There was a lot of nice people and a lot of good conversation all weekend.

Looking down the path

My space with the lake in the background

The view from the back of my space

Going North

I’m getting excited because in a couple more days, I will be heading to Tennessee for another show!  This is the big Lenoir City Festival that is set up on the banks of Ft Loudon Lake.  This show was recommended to me by quite a few artists at other Tennessee shows, so I decided to finally try it.  The best part is that it’s close enough to my parent’s home so I can stay and visit with them this weekend.

My shop is full of new inventory, still drying, that replaces what I sold at the Buckhead show a couple of weeks ago.  It should be ready to pack up by Thursday morning so I can get on the road that afternoon.  I have a Friday morning set up, so I want to get up there Thursday afternoon and relax before the work starts.  The weather looks promising for the weekend, so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well.

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.

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.

The Last Show of the Year

I always love doing the Avondale Autumn Fest show.  It’s one of those laid back, low intensity shows that is just downright comfortable to attend.  The people are nice and I get to socialize with artists that I hadn’t seen since last year’s show.  They moved the show to a closed off street this year because the park was too soggy.  I’m glad they made this decision because being on pavement is much better than sitting in a muddy booth all weekend.

We only had rain during Friday setup.  Saturday was dry, but very cold because of the wind.  I started out with a long sleeve shirt Saturday morning, and finished the day with two coats on top of that.  We still had a decent turnout with buying customers in spite of the cold day.  However, Sunday made up for everything.  The weather was beautiful and warm.  It also brought out a large crowd to enjoy this nice day.  Sales were great and everyone obviously had a good time.

I had many repeat customers from last year come by and purchase more products.  It’s one thing for someone to compliment your work, but it is always special when they come back for more.  Since most of the customers live in this neighborhood, it’s not uncommon for someone to buy on Saturday and return to buy again on Sunday.   Avondale Estates has such nice people living there.

This is sort of the crossroads of the show.  We had artists set up on three different street segments.

We were set up in front of beautiful old homes.  This is my booth and neighbors in front of “Leave it to Beaver” style houses.