The Board Chronicles: Tehachapi Mountain Fest 2019

henrymowry

7 years ago

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 mountain community, about 90 minutes north of us, has an annual festival that we have been a part of for the past 4 years. It’s local. It’s a shopping event. It’s handmade. We love this event.

Feel the love read my Board Chronicles from 2018, 2017 and 2016. Oh, and the 2015 version is here, though the date is not in the title. (I was so young then.)

New Ideas

We decided to upgrade our booth, and bought a triple booth: 2 for me, and the same 1 for her. I can only display all of what I do in a double booth, so this is now the 5th event that we do regularly with a triple booth. Here, we’re in an “L” shape, just like at the KHTS Home & Garden Show.
The Granddaughters decided to have a dance recital on the Saturday of this event, so the Grandmother drove down to Lancaster to do what she does. This left the Grandfather working a triple booth. I was a lonely, lonely man.
But! It’s good to have friends. Jan & Barry have the adjacent booth, and they both pitched in to help me survive the onslot of legacy customers that need Mrs M’s stuff. And, mine too, thankfully.

Observations

Set up in the heat on Friday afternoon was not fun. At all. But … it’s a triple booth. Whachagonnado? We got it done.
Mrs M drove me to the event on Saturday, and then left when set up was all tidied up. No worries. I got this. Who needs Mrs M?
I went walkabout shortly before the official opening at 10a … when I returned to the booth, my neighbor who was selling several crafty wooden items (including pallet wood MBOs for $10!) was in my booth with her cellphone out taking pictures of my work. I normally don’t care, but that brazen display of idea thievery was not welcome.
And then she asked me where I bought my wood. I was kinder than she deserved, IMHO.
A vendor liked my stuff. How much for that board? $225. Vendor rate? Uh, $225. He was not pleasant: he offered me $100 cash (LOL). My day was not starting well.
I said no, y’know?
A cute little girl walked up to me and handed me a $20 bill. (thank you?) THEN I noticed she had a little owl in her other hand; she was buying some ZooSoapia. That’s when I knew why she handed me money. OK, I’m back now.
A young lady, 20 something, asked it we took Venmo. I said yes, but I am not very familiar. She then proceeded to take me to school on Venmo. I felt like Miss M was in the booth.
An older lady introduced herself to me: her name was Veda. Too bad she missed meeting Velda.
To complete my notable female interactions in the absence of Mrs M, another lady asked if I made the cheese slicers. When I said yes, she asked if they were related to the slicers sold by the vendor in the downtown park by the train station? Ummmm. No. I make these. The lady had some difficulty understanding that I make my stuff, and if other people have similar stuff … I didn’t make those. And they didn’t make mine, for that matter. Still not sure if she understood after I explained 3 times that I make everything in the booth!
We went to the event expecting sales to be down from prior year … because last year was quite good, as we remembered. Funny thing: sales weren’t nearly as good as we thought. And we thought we were down, but we were actually up a bit. We were confused the whole weekend about sales because I had not taken the time to check history, and our memories were not accurate.
Expectations will kill you.

The Food

Best Meal: As Julia Child said, “People who love food are always the best people.” Dinner with friends are the best!
Honorable Mention: Big Papa’s Steakhouse was a total surprise. It’s a big bar … but the restaurant side was quiet and the food was really quite good.
Worst Meal: The free breakfast at the Best Western won’t win any awards. I keep thinking that….

The Facts

Total miles driven: 286
Booth cost: $540
Food cost: $105
Travel cost: $210
Total sales: $2,202
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: several
Saturday alarm: 5:50a
Sunday alarm: 7a
# transactions: I have no clue; counting was impossible as a solo act … with help
# soap & lotion vendors: just Mrs M
# woodworking vendors: there are a couple of others, but they don’t do what I do
Edge grain vs. end grain: no end grain sales
Returning next year? absolutely. We’ll need to think about 2 v 3 booths, though