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.
Temps were over 100* in Santa Clarita last weekend … good thing I planned on going to the beach.
Well, the harbor, anyway.
Ventura’s harbor is 50 miles west, and hosts entertainment events throughout the year to increase attendance to the area to support local business. This weekend, the Ventura Art & Street Painting Festival will have artists creating artwork on streets & sidewalks … with a few vendors to complete the experience.
This event has been recommended to me, but you never know. Do chalk art enthusiasts need cutting boards? Signs? Game boards?
New Ideas
- I’m doing a single booth in just the Jeep … so no rolling cabinet. Several products have to stay at home, including Lazy Susans, Serving Trays, Pigs, Word Blocks, some of the serving pieces and my canvas pictures. I don’t have room for all of the signs, either.
Observations
- Setup was as easy as can be; I had to cart in my stuff about 20 yards from the parking lot.
- The morning entertainment was from an artist and her 2 assistants that had a new Trimline 10×10 … and decided to set it up for the first time at this event. Big mistake, though they did get it set up.
- And it was set up in the wrong place. They had to move the canopy after they were up. Luckily, they didn’t have their ProPanels & artwork up yet!
- A young girl saw my Large Serving Pieces, AKA Large Surfboards, and suggested they would make good surfboards for her dolls.
Large Serving Piece 18 – 19. Black Walnut, Hard Maple, Cherry & White Oak.
- A man walked into the booth, and said, “this booth has the best smell of the day.”
- I had no response to that.
- This is the 2nd event in a row that I’ve had a “I want to support your art” purchase. It didn’t seem like they wanted the piece as much as they wanted to do me a favor. I didn’t ask for a favor; this kind of transaction always makes me feel odd.
- I continue to get people that want to buy my 3D cribbage tops without the cribbage board. I may have to do some 3D carving in my spare time.
- This event was very pleasant in Ventura Harbor. Sales, though, were underwhelming for a 2-day event. I will only go back if a lot of my promised future sales (“Let me take your card; Christmas is coming….”) actually happen.
The Food
- Best Meal: Mrs M made keto pizza for dinner; this was a good thing.
The Facts
- Total miles driven: 201
- Booth cost: $195
- Food cost: $0
- Travel cost: $105
- Total sales: $607
- Net Revenue (does not include product cost): $307
- # of people we met during the event from the producer: 1
- Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: 1
- Saturday alarm: 5:10a
- Sunday alarm: 6a
- # transactions: 11
- # soap & lotion vendors: none
- # woodworking vendors: one other cutting board maker was there (both of us were first timers at this event). Neither of us had good weekends.
- Edge grain vs. end grain: 13:0
- Returning next year? Probably not
Boards sold: 13
CNC Signs: 8
Cheese Boards: 4
Small Board: 1
