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I have kept a watchful eye on the Lockport, IL Old Canal Days Artisan Faire for several years. I have always been discouraged from doing this show based on my personal observations as well as feedback from exhibitors I have spoken with. Well this year I decided to give it a try because there were some who were encouraged by the fact that the city of Lockport brought in a new individual to organize and run the show. In my opinion as well as many others I spoke with at the show they made a poor choice.

At the beginning of the application process I dealt with Fran Nickel who is an office assistant at the Gaylord Building in Lockport. Fran made every attempt to be helpful but was unable to answer many of my questions. Fran consistently deferred to the coordinator Susan Padgen. I asked on many occasions for Susan Padgen to contact me but this never happened. I had several questions regarding parking for exhibitors, what was the jury process, when will exhibitors be notified, what is the set up time, etc all of which went unanswered and still no contact from anyone who could.

Finally about 2 1/2 weeks before the show I did receive an acceptance letter but in following up I still never received and calls or emails from Susan Padgen, the coordinator. I also received an email with my choice of set up time but still no contact from Susan Padgen. Fran, the Office Assistant had finally told me where I would be parking my trailer and informed me that I could bring my trailer in the Friday night before and park it in the lot. I still had questions and I was still asking to speak to Susan Padgen but still no contact. 

I finally asked who Susan Padgen actually worked for in the hierarchy and I was told the Mayor Steven Streit's office. I called and got the voice mail but did not receive a return call. I then called the City Administrators Office, Ben Benson and he told he would have Susan call me.

I finally received a call from Susan  about 8:00PM that night and no surprises here but she told me that Fran had no right to tell me I could drop my trailer on Friday night and that she was just an office assistant and did not have the authority to do so. I asked about booth location and she said she was still working with some tremendous new exhibitors and until she had that finalized she could not give my my location. Susan asked me about my set up time and I told her that per the form I was sent I chose 5:00am. She then told me that the first available time was 5:45 am due to IDOT regulations for street closures. I was the second person to arrive for set up and I was there at 5:30 because she made it very clear in her email the punctuality was imperative. So much for imperative, I sat there in my truck waiting for her directions until 6:20 AM.

I walked the show a couple of times and was able to speak to many exhibitors and by my count there were only 4 who were returning exhibitors. I was very disappointed in the overall quality of the exhibitors as most would have been much more comfortable in a small church bazaar format rather than what was advertised and promoted as a juried show. I asked Susan about the jury process and she never would address the question.

So in the end I did pretty good at the show but my line tends to get a broad acceptance. There were two others I spoke with that also said they did well but were very disappointed in the lack of organization and communication from the show organizer. Many were downright pissed because of the delay in set up because Susan's organizational issues and the extended wait time for Susan to escort each individual exhibitor to their booth space. 

I will probably choose to do this show again but mainly beacuse it is a local show and I have a pretty good clientele which tend to come to see me at shows. However, I really hope that the city of Lockport can find someone with organizational skills as well as the connections and marketing skills to recruit quality exhibitors because in my opinion, Susan Padgen was very disappointing.