The Board Chronicles is an ongoing series of articles about the adventures of Mrs M’s Handmade as a vendor at community festivals & craft fairs. Mrs M’s subsidiary, Mr M’s Woodshop, has been approved to create this chronicle for the good of vendorkind.
This was the 3rd event in this series. Velda did day 1 for doTerra, and I ended up doing days 2 & 3 as Mr M’s Woodshop. We went into this day with very low expectations, and exceeded them. Barely.
You have to be happy when you exceed expectations, right?
New Ideas
- It was too hot to change shirts after I set up (and what was the point?). So, I wore a plain blue t-shirt for the Blues. How hot was it? Late in the day, my phone told me it was 86* … and it felt cool.
Observations
- First comment of the day: “Wow!” when someone saw the chess boards. If only they would have bought one!
- I’m a live music snob. After several years running the concerts at Magic Mountain, I just can’t tolerate poor performances. In this case, the musicians were very good, and the sound guy delivered the Worst. Sound. Ever.
- The one sale of the day happened while I was out of the booth, talking to a Damsel in Distress (that’s what her shirt said anyway). Anyway, mid-sentence I noticed Velda had a customer and the deal was all but done when I got back to the booth. Maybe I should let Velda do more of the talking (insert snappy one-liner here).
- Driving home, just south of the park entrance, is an underpass to get to the freeway onramp. I wasn’t paying attention to the car ahead of me … but as I drove to the onramp, well-timed firecrackers went off in the lane next to me just as I went through the underpass. Nice acoustics amplified their sound. I said a bad word and didn’t wreck the Jeep.
- “At least we got a free concert!”
The Food
Saturday Dinner: Best event food ever! 
- Avoiding event food
- Not waiting in 30 minute food lines
- Demonstrating in the booth how nicely the cheese boards look when used well
- Eating better
- Sharing dinner with our good friend Jan at this event. Lovely!
The Facts
- Total miles driven: 38
- Booth cost: $35
- # of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
- Total sales: $140
- # containers of product taken: 10
- # boards available: 83
- Saturday alarm: nope
- # transactions: 1
- # soap & lotion vendors: 1
- # woodworking vendors: 1
- Edge grain vs. end grain: 0:1
Boards sold: 1
The board sold was a custom order end grain, 12×16 with juice groove. No problem!
