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.
A brief note about timing: I am BEHIND. This event happened last December, and I’m just now getting to blogs from the 4th quarter. My apologies to my loyal readers. Draw your own conclusions about why I’m so, so far behind. Meanwhile … from Hollywood:
This is an office boutique.
Trailer Park is a company that makes trailers … for movies. Clearly, they have a sense of humor.
After all, they invited me to their holiday boutique.
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.
Trailer Park is a company you’ve probably never heard of … but you’ve seen their work. This company makes movie trailers, and also does in-theater marketing (the posters & stand-up pieces that you see in the theater).
They open their cafeteria up in December to do a holiday boutique for their employees, and I was invited to take my stuff, and Mrs M’s stuff, to the boutique.
The office is in downtown Hollywood – opposite the Chinese Theater – so traffic was a challenge. It was especially so, given that the new Star Wars movie opens tomorrow, and workers were on Hollywood Boulevard rolling out the red carpet on the afternoon of this event. I walked through the chaos that is Hollywood & Highland, and took a couple of pictures of what was going on:
From the cafeteria window, I could see the Chinese Theater courtyard that had C3PO & R2D2 posing for pictures. The area was blocked off … and security was handled by 2 storm troopers. Good choice, that.
It’s just another day in Hollywood.
New Ideas
A double table top display on a Thursday afternoon in an office … haven’t done that before!
I showed up in the loading zone behind the building, and Trailer Park sent escorts with rolling carts to take everything up in the elevator. They were required to “badge” the elevator so it would go to the 7th floor.
Observations
Event # 14 of 15 in our 4th quarter. I am so done.
I am so done.
I arrived on time (of course), but that was too early. They needed more time to clear the cafeteria from lunch so we could have the tables. No problem … I can set up in 45 minutes. I think.
I could.
Constant traffic, and small sales, as expected at an in-office event like this. Worth my time, probably, but no one is getting rich here.
The Food
Thursday Lunch: a peanut butter sandwich, on the road. Of course.
Thursday Snack: nope.
Thursday Dinner: Tomato rice soup & grilled cheese from Mrs M. Yum.
The Facts
Total miles driven: 52
Booth cost: $0
Food cost: $0
Travel cost: $27
Total sales: $402
Net Revenue (does not include product cost): $375
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: many
Saturday alarm: nope
# transactions: 13x
# soap & lotion vendors: One other, doing an all-natural presentation with bars selling for $14 (!).
# woodworking vendors: just me
Edge grain vs. end grain: 4:1
Returning next year? maybe
Boards sold: 5
Small Boards: 2
Cheese Board: 1
Magic Bottle Opener: 1
Trivet: 1
Cheese Board 16 – 054. Purpleheart, Birds Eye Maple, Goncalo Alves, Jatoba, Bloodwood & Yellowheart. 9″ x 11″ x 3/4″.
Trivet 17 – 08. Padauk, Hard Maple, & Cherry. Sold in its first showing.
Tom Cruise’s fortune was made in “Risky Business” with his oh so retro Ray-Bans.
When have you been painting white boards in the direct sunlight too long?
When your eyes no longer see color properly.
It’s called Chromatic Adaptation, and what it means is I over-stressed the brightness and blue color receptors in my eyes … so when I walked into the darker, flourescent-lit garage workshop, I couldn’t see brightness or blue colors … which is particularly bad in a blue-light flourescent environment. So everything looked dark brown. And I mean everything looked that way until my eyes recovered several seconds later.
So it was time to quit painting!
Here’s a link to a site so you can see what happens when you over-saturate certain colors in your eyes: PlanetPerplex.com.
Ever wonder why Hollywood stars always wear sunglasses? It’s not just to look cool. Or mask their identity. In fact, if they’ve spent too much time in bright lights, then their eyes eventually adapt so that they don’t see well in transitions between light and dark … they teach their eyes to adapt slowly, because they are always in the bright lights.
So they wear sunglasses to protect their eyes.
It also protects their eyes from all of the camera flashes. And if they are, uh, self-medicating, then it can help protect over-dilated eyes.
And it’s cool.
Sunglasses were just as important in Cruise’s Top Gun.
