The Board Chronicles: Boutique Fantastique 2019

henrymowry

6 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.

Home.

This is the heritage holiday boutique in Santa Clarita.

The PTSO takes over the gym (after the basketball team relinquishes ownership at 5pm Friday). The PTSO then spreads tarps over the entire floor, tapes out the spaces for 100+ vendor booths and tries to get home before midnight.

The next morning, the gates open for load in at 6:30am. As vendors drive up to the gym, they are met by hordes of students there to support the event that funds many scholarships. This is the biggest school event that we’ve encountered, and it’s a joy to be there.

Our 3 kids graduated from Saugus High … and this event raises over $10,000 each year for the SHS scholarship fund.

You bet we want to be support this event. What’s not to like?

This event has really never been a slam dunk success for us (2017, 2016, 2015), but it’s perfect in every non-financial way: we sleep in our own bed. The event is 3 miles from home. We see a LOT of familiar faces, have found a multitude of local, year-round supporters, and have fostered a great number of friendships at this event.

We’re in. No doubt.

New Ideas

Velda traveled to spend a week with her mother, returning on the night before this event. She anticipated she might be, uh, challenged to stay awake during the boutique, so she elected to do a (somewhat) smaller presentation, limited to her traditional wooden display on a 6′ table. Therefore, she “gave” me the other space in the booth so I could have more than just a 10×10.
Since this was a unique set up, I did a floorplan for how we could best use the 10×20 space. I identified the number of tables we would need: 10. Then, I only brought 9. I’ve never brought too few tables to an event before.
Making their debut at this event for me were Cheese Slicers, Garlic Dipping Boards, Carnivore Boards, Cribbage Boards, CNC Signs and the just-produced, aptly named Cracker Things. It appears I’ve been busy since our last appearance at Boutique Fantastique!

Observations

This event is a well-oiled machine right now. I arrived at the parking lot at 5:45a to line up for the gate to open. There are about 10 unloading slots (and only 2 for a trailer), so you have to wait to get in. Once you’re in, there are MANY students to carry your gear to your booth space while you go park your car. I was unloading at 6:30a, parked at 7a, and began set up with Mrs M.
It took all of 3 hours this morning. We had a unique set up, with mesh walls, the Trimline framework, 9 tables … and I stacked 9 containers to mimic my 10th table. Covered the containers with a table cloth, and it worked well. Hmmmmmmm.
Back story: Mrs M hates it when I put multiple copies of the same sign up for sale. I generally do this with 2 signs: “Why Limit HAPPY To An Hour?” and “The Answer is BEER. No One Cares What The Question Was.” I put up different colors of each sign; I make about 6 versions of each. HAPPY and BEER are always gold, but the other copy could be red, blue (2 shades), green (2 shades), black or purple.
Mrs M hates it when I post all of those copies on the walls. Today, with the ticking clock measuring our set up time, she was right to observe that putting up multiple copies would spend time I might not have to get the signs up before our opening at 10a.
I put up just 2 of each.
First question of the day: “Do you have more of these?
Second question of the day: “What other colors do you have?”
Yes, I did say I told you so. Who could blame me?
Well, we know who could, and who did.
Fabulous weather for this event: mid-80s both days. And I do know that Californians love to do their holiday shopping when it’s in the 80s.
This event blew up on Saturday; I had my best day ever at Boutique Fantastique. Was it because my display was bigger? Because we were absent last year? Because all of my swell new products (which were the top sellers)? No clue. I had a good day. A very good day. Most vendors reported strong sales.
Mrs M, on the other hand, had a slow weekend. Not a good combination with her jet lag.
Were her sales down because of the smaller display? Because she didn’t put price tags up on Saturday? Because our neighbor put a big furry waterfall of clothing outside of her booth, blocking the view to Mrs M’s display? There’s no way to know. But maybe next year….
Cracker Things were a hit. # 1 comment from multiple ladies in the booth: “Those are cute!”

I take that as a win.
I generally assume I’ll sell no cutting boards this weekend, which has been basically true in the past. This is probably because the students are selling their work by the front door, and every Mom/Cousin/Aunt has to buy the board that their student made. That’s all good. This year, though, I sold 4x cutting boards, all of which were bigger sizes than the students make.
I take that as a win.
Load out was smooth. Mrs M and I got the merchandise put away, then she went home to nap. Students showed up to help me do the rest, and the work moved quickly as other vendors left and I gained more help. When I went to go move the trailer to the loading zone, 100% of my gear was on the curb waiting when I drove up. 4 guys helped me load … and I was home 2 hours after the Boutique closed.
HUGE win. HUGE.

The Food

Best Meal: The youngest Mrs M, AKA MrsMowry, joined us for dinner with her beau, AKA the Engineer, on Saturday night. The Mrs M’s collaborated and stirred up a pasta surprise. The Mr M’s watched football and drank whiskey.
Honorable Mention: I forget how good Jersey Mike’s sandwiches are. They sell 4″ subs at the Boutique, and that was my lunch both days.

The Facts

Total miles driven: 24
Booth cost: $275
Food cost: $24
Travel cost: $0
Total sales: $3,035
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 3
Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: 0
Saturday alarm: 5a
Sunday alarm: nope
# transactions: we had a good Saturday, but Sunday was slow. Too slow for jet-lagged Mrs M
# soap & lotion vendors: 2 other vendors were “soap adjacent”
# woodworking vendors: several vendors had wooden objects on display, but the only real “competitor” I had was the high school woodshop, which sells small student-made cutting boards to fund wood purchases for the program. I am a supporter.
Returning next year? Yup.