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.
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A note about my absence. After a few months of getting more and more behind … I still haven’t caught up.
I will, just not today. In the interim, here’s the latest installment of The Board Chronicles for all of you that have been missing my missives.
Enjoy, and thank you for your patience!
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Yes, we were there.
We were at the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival, and had a perfectly wonderful time until the crazy guy showed up and started shooting at 5:41pm on Sunday, July 28. I’ve already told that story in a special edition of The Board Chronicles: Terror. I’ve also told the story of how we picked up the pieces, Recovery.
This is not that story. This is the story of the event up until the crazy guy ruined a great weekend.
New Ideas
I created a brand new product for this event, Garlic Dipping Boards. Mrs M is taking credit for the idea, and I am wisely giving her all of the credit. Our good friend Nicole makes the Great Garlic Graters, and I make the boards. The customer get to choose the GGG that they like, and then pair it with the GDB. I hope this works! I made 24x new boards for this weekend!
Display of the GDBs required food, I thought. We had olive oil, garlic and bread to show how you could use a Dipping Board.
Observations
Signing up for the event proved to be a bit of a challenge: they sent me a commercial application. Fees for a double booth were something like $3,000.
Uh, no.
I carefully explained that I made everything I sold, and eventually – eventually – I was given a revised contract at the handmade vendor rate. My double booth cost “only” $1,450. Plus, we were paying for 5 hotel nights, meals … I was not facing a small number when you add it all up.
This event is a big idea. Mrs M has had it on her bucket list for a long time: if you’ve ever eaten at her table, you know she likes garlic. No, she Loves. Garlic. She didn’t want to be a vendor at the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival, she just wanted to be there to enjoy this ultimate Foodie event.
Check.
So, I set up the Trimline and my typical double booth, and Mrs M got to be my assistant (“sit there, look pretty, and wrap up the purchases if you can.”) Her other duties were to enjoy the festival and get lunch.
Oh, and, come to find out, they serve alcohol at the Festival. They have commemorative copper mugs in which they serve a very nice Moscow Mule.
Very nice.
We each had one each day.
We needed a set of the mugs … how else would we get them?
So, you see, we were intent on enjoying the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and we did a good job.
People came to the Festival from all over (60,000 is the estimated attendance). Local people volunteer, and are “paid” with contributions to local charities in their name. So, high school cheerleading squads volunteered and bought uniforms, food bank patrons volunteered to fund operations, and so on. This is a very big, very well-rooted community event.
Did I mention there was alcohol? People have a good time at the Festival. One of my early customers was wearing a hat with a solar powered fan in the crown. Lovely! And, come to find out, she did field archaeology, so the hat was a professional tool as well.
The biggest problem we found on Friday was that our cellphones didn’t work. At all. Verizon didn’t work in the park??? Come to find out, no. Verizon had zero signal in the park. We had this VERY big event and we couldn’t do any transactions with PayPal?
Nothing to do about it … but go buy another phone from Sprint that evening after the event closed. We had just enough time, and went back to the motel to download the software and get the phone ready for a big Saturday. It worked perfectly. So … don’t use Verizon at this event. Check.
I should have expected it. I put a display of food on the table … so people helped themselves. My goodness, what were they thinking? The bread was a crouton after a day in the sun, and people were still eating the bread! I couldn’t believe it.
But I should have expected it.
Quote from a wise male customer: “I don’t need Google. My wife knows everything.”
A young couple took a while to make their decision … but they eventually decided that a small end grain board just wasn’t big enough, so they bought the biggest board in the booth. Love that.
Sunday, I was examining the booth, and I had a very good idea of my inventory at that point. I realized that I had a heart-shaped board stolen that morning. I believe that $60 board is the first piece that’s ever been stolen from my display, after 6 years of vending. It had to happen.
After the dust settled, this was a very good event (until 5:41pm on Sunday). Total sales were strong. In fact, this was the #3 event of the year in 2019. Very good.
On the other hand, with costs skyrocketing due to the terror event, the event was not nearly as profitable as I had hoped. Is it fair to attibute the crime-caused costs directly to the event? There’s no good answer here.
So, will I be back? I hope to … but I’m going to wait until I see the communication from the event producer. I assume attendance will be down in 2020 because of the terror event in 2019. Will my costs go down in recognition of the (assumed) lower attendance?
I’ll wait & see.
The Food
Best Meal: We had a nice Italian meal on Saturday evening at Maurizio’s in nearby Morgan Hill. This postage stamp of a restaurant did not have enough seating, and no waiting area for those, like us, waiting for those all-too-rare seats. But, the food was good.
The Facts
Total miles driven: This should have been about 625 miles, but ended up being a lot more, as you know, due to the terror incident
Booth cost: $1,450
Food cost: irrelevant because of the extra costs incurred
Travel cost: see above. 5 hotel nights turned into 7 hotel nights. 1 round trip turned into 3 round trips.
Total sales: $4,792
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: 2
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.
When I left you, dear readers, I had a rental car and was in a hotel in Gilroy, trying to imagine what should be next. That was Monday. If you need to catch up, you need to read about our experiences at this year’s Gilroy Garlic Festival. Read about it, here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Since that fateful Sunday evening just 5 days ago, I’ve driven several hundred miles, finally gotten all of my stuff back … and am now sitting at home. Here is what happened:
Velda & I spent Monday watching the news and trying to figure out what to do. We networked with other vendors and read email updates that we began to get. The Garlic Festival website had a dedicated link to news as well.
CNN was carrying all of the Gilroy press conferences live at this point,
and we were eager viewers. We learned that the entire Christmas Hill
Park was now considered a crime scene, and that the entire area was now
under FBI protection. It appeared that it would be days before anything
could be recovered from inside the park – where the jeep and trailer
were parked, and the booth was set up with all of my wooden pieces on
display, open to the elements 24/7.
Remembering the Enterprise Rent-a-car slogan (“We’ll pick you up!”), we took them up on that offer and got a rental. We stayed near Gilroy on Monday night, which was an extra night in the motel, plus food (an accurate accounting will follow in the formal event review, but for now, you’ll just get approximations). $200.
We communicated with our final customer of the day, who had bought a beautiful, large Black Walnut cutting board and left it with us for pickup later … until we were all interrupted by the idiot with the gun. The buyers, luckily, lived in Gilroy, and we agreed that we would see each other when we returned, so they could get their cutting board … which was currently in the FBI’s protective custody.
We decided to drive home with the rental on Tuesday, and drop it off in Santa Clarita. $200.
Gas, $40.
On our way home, we learned at 2:45p – when we were 4 hours away from Gilroy – that we could pick up the Jeep if we were there by 6:30p. No way we could make that, and having the Jeep wasn’t that helpful anyway in the near term. The trailer had to stay with the booth – and the product was not accessible. Yet. We decided to keep on the road to home and do nothing, for now.
Wednesday was more of the same. I called the offered information number … and got the main receptionist for the city of Gilroy. No help there. Velda got a call from an FBI agent, who verified that she did not see the perpetrator.
We saw nothing.
Our near-complete lack of information, and general confusion continued throughout the week. Official announcements were typically made shortly before the time period that you were allowed to do something, so you really had no advance notice when anything would change. No. Idea.
Late Wednesday, an update landed on the website saying that “sometime” on Thursday the vendors on our side of the park would be able to recover their property. No other information was given. No time. No schedule. Nothing. We were cautioned that we would need an ID or driver’s license, proof of insurance and registration for the vehicles before they could be recovered. Well, OK, then.
Velda & I agreed that we would pack up Wednesday night and drive north Thursday morning. We would take the opportunity as it presented itself.
Velda, who had her fair share of anxiety – and then some – woke up at 2:15a. She puttered in the kitchen. At about 4a, she starting making the bed with me still in it and that’s when I got up.
We were on the road shortly after 5a. We drove her car, with the plan being that she would drive it home while I drove the Jeep & trailer home. Gas to & fro, $80. Wear & tear … well, we’re way beyond accounting for that on this one.
We were in line behind a flatbed produce truck. I have no idea why.
When we were almost to Gilroy, we learned that we could get access to the park after 1p. Since it was shortly after 9a, we had some time to kill. We ended up at the Gilroy outlet mall, and Velda did a bit of shopping. I read a book. We ate lunch (she made our lunches at 3a, I think it was). We headed out at about noon, and we were at the gate at 12:15p. A CHP officer was manning the barricade, and he told us where to wait. We got in line; about 10 cars were ahead of us.
Soon after we got in line, an FBI agent came out to talk to everyone in line and tell them what to expect:
You would be individually escorted at all times
You were not allowed to do anything but recover your property that was located on what’s called the “park side” of the park … where our booth was.
Everything in your booth had already been examined by the FBI.
All cash in the booth had already been photographed, logged and removed by the FBI (we had left none).
All valuables were similarly removed from the booth, we were told (so my cutting boards were not considered valuable. This is SO WRONG.).
They had already arrested some people that tried to sneak through the protective line of police. The crime scene was still being managed by the FBI (how stupid do you have to be to try and sneak onto a crime scene while the police are still there?).
We finally got to go in a little after 2p.
Each car had to be checked in by the FBI. A form had to be filed with my ID info for each of my 2 vehicles. Velda was also identified with legal ID and logged into their system. While in the park, we had a nice FBI agent named Matt (badged & armed) by our side at all times. Our trailer was an additional wrinkle; but we got a ride in an FBI cart to the Jeep, where I could then hook up the trailer, drive to the booth and begin to do what we were there to do. Velda took the pictures … this is exactly how we found the booth. The empty containers in front of the booth, the products and the canopy were set up exactly how we had left them Sunday evening.
This is the area of our booth after it was removed. The mostly brown grass was the walkway between my tables. The green grass was under the tablecloths. The rectangles of dead grass are where my empty containers were sitting under the tables. As you can see, most of the other vendors were already out of the park, but work continues.
There was some minor damage to most of the boards due to exposure to the elements; they’ll need to be refinished. Unfortunately.
Thursday evening, we went to our motel for the evening & I took a shower, thankfully. We went out to dinner, and then found our customer to present her with the board, now liberated from protective custody.
Motel, $140. Food, $52.
We got up Friday morning, had our horrible but “free” breakfast at the motel, put gas in both cars and got on the road. We’re now home with the Jeep, trailer & my boards. The trailer is in the driveway … and now I have to fix all of the damage.
But not today.
I need to repair 200+ boards before my next event in 14 days. Costs … let’s call it a day or more, and at least $100 for supplies (sandpaper, oil, beeswax, lacquer).
Home again.
We now know that the FBI investigation will continue for perhaps another week; all booths and property left on the other side of the park (the “ranch side”) are still in place. Those vendors must simply wait.
We now know that our last customers of the day – the couple that bought the nice Black Walnut end grain cutting board – were RIGHT THERE when the shooting happened. They saw it all. They ran for their lives, and, fortunately, were not injured. They are also 100% certain that the shooter acted alone. There was no accomplice. There was no 2nd shooter.
There was just one stupid, crazed gunman who wreaked havoc on a community.
