This 'craft' event had about sixty five 'vendors'. At least five or six were commercial or political. Another ten were obvious buy/sell, with another ten very suspect. I was there with three other club members, two who sold their work. We didn't pay anything for our booth as a civic organization, but were provided power for our equipment and were allowed to sell. One other club member and I had several items on display Sunday (I wasn't there on Sat.), but the mediocre crowd wasn't buying much of anything from anybody. Although I talked to five nearby people that I could tell made what they were selling, none sold much of anything. None of them claimed to have made much more than booth fee. My club was looking for new members (and I think we found a few), paid no money, so we were very 'profitable'. Why was anyone else even there? Why did they think they'd sell anything there?
From my experience, my wife and I know this event would not be a profitable one for us, even with a booming economy. Although not far from what is a reasonably urban environment (not metropolitan), this one is much more blue-collar. An Internet search of the median income statistics of this area shows it. Although we do have low priced items, our average price points were way above what an average person there would want to spend. We'd just never consider this as a potential venue as our 'product' just wouldn't fit what they'd buy - they'd rather get it at a *-Mart cheaper.
What was obvious today was that the area has been really affected by the economy. Those that came had little to no discretionary money, and although many picked up some of my pieces, they put them back down when they saw the price tags. They weren't poor, homeless or in rags; they just couldn't spend anything on even functional art. Instead, they spent it on their kids or grand kids - face painting, balloons, pony rides, food. I believe a few of the vendors were newbies, but at least twenty had been around the proverbial block. I'm left wondering still why they were there, other than the old 'keep trying, only harder!' thing, but then I wonder about a lot of things some times.
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