Santa Barbara | MowryJournal.com

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.

Santa Barbara artists have a virtual monopoly on events in their city. Most events require you to be a county resident to be a vendor. When the opportunity came up to represent at an event in Santa Barbara, I was very interested.

This promoter does 3 home & garden shows in Santa Barbara (and one in Santa Maria) every year. It fit on the calendar.

Let’s see what all the fuss is about in Santa Barbara.

New Ideas

Same setup as last week in Visalia. I didn’t even unload the trailer.
I had a corner location with a wall that extended forward to the door … and the promoter invited me to fill the space. I was happy to oblige with an extra table that I dedicated to a cutting board display. I sold 3 boards off of that “feature” table.

Observations

Got to the venue for setup, and found they had me in a single booth. I asked the promoter if that was a mistake, and she put me in a double. After researching everything following the event, I believe the mistake was mine, but she had the space, so it all worked out.
But … I was right by the exit. I an superstitious about being by the door, but whachagonnado?
This is a relatively small event, with about 70 vendors. All were indoors. Some traditional home show businesses (AC repair, window replacement, bath remodel, etc). Some buy & sell, from Scentsy to import crap. A few artists. And me.
The first buy & sell vendor left at 1:30p on Saturday, after only 3-1/2 hours. I mean, it was slow, but, wow.
I didn’t sell anything until 3p on Saturday. In the next 2 hours, I sold 15 pieces, including 5 cutting boards. Patience is a virtue.
A self-professed turner came into the booth, talked about her passion for the hobby … and bought 2 cutting boards. Loved that!
As at most shows, I was asked if I was local. I generally responded that I was “local-ish,” from 2 hours away. 2 of the questioners talked about how they wish there were local artists here.
What is it with the insular approach to art vendors in Santa Barbara? That’s a mystery to me.
Sunday started slow … and stopped. Not. Good.
This weekend, I could have done the nearby Goleta Lemon Festival, which we’ve done a couple of times previously. That event has not proven very profitable, so I though I’d try something new. This event … was a bit worse.
Requests were for an elephant board, surfboards (I’ve been out for months now), in-counter boards, and a few custom boards “with details to follow.” We’ll see; good follow up orders could make this event more interesting for next year. Without them ….

The Food

Best Meal: Woodstock Pizza, Henry’s MOS. Best pizza I’ve had in some time.
Honorable Mention: Hello, Old Friend
Worst Meal: Chicken & Fries from the diner @ the Showground. The fries were not edible.

The Facts

Total miles driven: 176
Booth cost: $500
Food cost: $96
Travel cost: $315
Total sales: $1,365
Net Revenue (does not include product cost): $454
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: several
Saturday alarm: nope
Sunday alarm: nope
# transactions: 10
# soap & lotion vendors: there was one; she had a big bath bomb display
# woodworking vendors: one of the artists there did woodburning, but not woodworking, really. She just decoratively burned pieces of wood.
Edge grain vs. end grain: 15:4. Amazing.
Returning next year? Doubtful.

Boards sold: 19

6x Cutting Boards

6x Trivets

2x Word Blocks

2x CNC Signs

1x Cheese Board

1x 5 Section Server

1x Custom Order

CNC Sign 18 – 37. Hard Maple. 12″ x 16″.

CNC Sign 18 – 48. Cherry. 12″ x 16″.

Cutting Board 18 – 724. 18 species are in this board! End Grain. Chaos Board.

Cutting Board 18 – 313. Hard Maple, Purpleheart & Jatoba. Edge grain. 14″ x 18″ x 1-1/8″.

Cheese & Cracker Server 18 – 205. Jatoba, White Oak, Bloodwood, Merbau & Cherry. 14″ square x 1-1/8″ thick.

Trivet 18 – 716. 8.5″ square.

Trivet 18 – 727. Purpleheart, Mesquite & Black Walnut.

Cheese Board 18 – 120. Black Walnut, Hard Maple & Purpleheart. 9″ x 11″ x 5/8″.

Cutting Board 18 – 325. 12″ x 16″ x 1-1/4″. Hard Maple, Jatoba & Goncalo Alves. Edge Grain.

Trivet 18 – 738. Black Walnut, Hard Maple, Goncalo Alves & Purpleheart.

We’ve done the Strawberry Festival. The Poppy Festival. The Almond Blossom Festival.

Time for some lemons.

Goleta is 77 miles due west of us. It’s part of the central California coast, north of Santa Barbara. We found local motel prices were, uh, pricey in Santa Barbara County, so we ended up driving another 33 miles to the motel in Buellton.

This was the 24th annual Goleta Lemon Festival, celebrating the area’s lemon orchards.

Didn’t see any.

Velda wanted lemons for her lotion display, so we went to the local grocery store to buy some.

The lemons for sale were products of Chile. Those warning bells just turned into sirens….

New Ideas

Best attempt to energize social media by the promoter, complete with sending out custom graphic with a timely admonition to invite all of your “clients, friends and followers” to the event. Predictably, the person running the event for the Chamber of Commerce was under 30. Here are the perfect graphics they sent out a few days before the event:
Mrs M premiered 2 products here: Goat Milk Lotion & Beard Oil. Both were successful introductions. Because she needed more products.
We were an island, really … our double booth was open on 3 sides. The back of the booth was open, but there was a kids activity business there on Saturday and a kids music activity business there on Sunday. They were open air, so we had great, great visibility on the corner of the vendor area, right next to the kids in plastic bubbles playing in the water. Everybody had to check that out, and we were right there. Perfect location.

Observations

Could not find the drive in entrance to the event area. I could see the set-up, in the city park, but I couldn’t find the road to get there. Silly me. I was supposed to jump the curb with the not-wide-enough wheel chair ramp, and drive in on the sidewalk. Well, OK, then. Here we go.
Set up had barely begun when a neighboring canopy blew over and began to tumble towards a bunch of clueless ladies setting up their booth next to their car. I caught the canopy, helped right it and collapse it so it would not harm any people or possessions. The canopy wasn’t weighted at all, of course. When I returned to our booth, Velda and I muttered it together: “Amateurs.”
Surprisingly small number of vendors. This was not a huge event, and certainly didn’t have 35,000 in attendance, as the information provided by the event on a vendor website promised. There were perhaps a dozen retail vendors (3 of them were jewelry) and perhaps 2 dozen commercial vendors or local companies there promoting their business. There were several food vendors, some of which were local fundraisers selling lemony goodness.
This Festival is promoted as a family friendly event, and there were LOTS of young families there for the wide range of kids activities. Pony rides to Johnny Jump Ups for tweens. There was a track to drive battery operated John Deere tractors for the 3 year olds. A climbing wall. 4 or 5 bounce houses. Happy kids were everywhere.
Lots of UCSB students were there as well. No idea why, really … but we had college students, many of which had ridden their bikes to get there. It’s the central coast, after all.
I got 3 requests for backgammon boards … which is now my most requested item. Hmmmmm. Also a request for salad tongs, which I’ll file under “no.”
Never expected Velda to say this to me: “Here’s a pretty picture of soap.”
Best line of the weekend came from a young father there with his wife and 2 carrot-topped children. He was wearing a Cardinals t-shirt, and I commented that I grew up a Cardinals fan, but then converted to the Dodgers when I moved to LA. I congratulated the parents on having 2 red-headed children. Part of the 1%. I observed that I used to have red hair … to which the Dad replied, “Did you lose the red hair when you stopped being a Cardinals fan?”
You know the event didn’t go well for some when one vendor neighbor told us she’d never do another pop-up event like this.
Velda was overwhelmed by the business on Saturday: it was Mrs M’s best single day ever. The event was the biggest event ever for Mrs M. Those central coast people must need their handmade lotion. Or, perhaps it was what several people suggested to Velda: we had the best products there. Apparently.
While Mrs M prospered, Mr M was bored. Last Saturday, I outsold Mrs M, 10:1. This Saturday, Mrs M outsold me, 2:1 … the first time that’s happened in more than a year. And it’s about time!

The Food

Friday Dinner: Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Buellton. To paraphrase MrsMowry, we were drinking better beer than you were.

Saturday Breakfast: McDonald’s # 4 for me & # 1 for Velda. We ate while driving to the event.

Saturday Lunch: Velda’s cheese & cracker presentation. It got kudos from the customers. Of course.

Saturday Snack: Too hot. Who’s hungry?

Saturday Dinner: We couldn’t get a reservation to the Hitching Post, so we were stuck seeking comfort food at Pea Soup Andersen’s. It’s a traditional tourist-driven restaurant on the California 101 highway. And … ’nuff said.

Sunday Breakfast: See Saturday. Still the best option.

Sunday Lunch: Cheese & crackers, part II. Still a good idea.

Sunday Snack: Velda had a lemon beer.

Sunday Dinner: Leftovers at home. 9:15pm.

The Facts

Total miles driven: 385 (we drive 2 cars to have enough cargo capacity at most events)
Booth cost: $450 for a handcrafter 10×20
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 2
Total sales: $1,784
# containers of product taken: 23
# boards available: 104
Saturday alarm: 5:30a
Sunday alarm: 5:30a (oops. Should have been 6:30a)
# transactions: No clue. Velda gave up & stopped counting. For Mrs. M, this was the Best. Event. Ever.
# soap & lotion vendors: one other, selling soap & lotion bars
# woodworking vendors: one other, selling kid’s wooden toys
Edge grain vs. end grain: 12:1

Boards sold: 13

Small Board: 4

Small Sous Chef: 2

Lazy Susan: 2

Small Surfboard: 2

Chess Board: 1

Large Surfboard: 1

Cheese Board: 1

Sous Chef # 15 – 21. Hard Maple & Jatoba.

Chess Board # 03. Mahogany & White Oak squares with a Walnut border.

Lazy Susan 15 – 011. Cherry & Black Walnut. That’s curly cherry sapwood in the center; when you spin this lazy susan, it goes psychedelic! 17″ diameter.