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Chatsworth Cranberry Festival Arts & Crafts Festival

Intersection of Routes 532 & 562 
Chatsworth (Woodland Township), NJ 

3rd Weekend of October - Saturday & Sunday 9:00am-4:00pm

The festival was started years ago as a small local crafters show and has grown over the last 30 years into what it is today…some (buyers and sellers) say it is almost too big. The Festival Committee consists of a group of volunteers who put this show together each year. http://cranfest.org/Chatsworth_Cranberry_Festival/Welcome.html. Chatsworth is in the middle of the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

Looking at the fundraising booklet for the show (no artists & crafters names) there is a map which shows the area the artists & crafters are set up in. Surrounding this area in every direction (we were told home owners rent out their acreage) are areas where there is every type of buy sell and food vendor you can think of. NJ Lottery and commercial contractors had trailers. Many vendors were trying to out yell the others, “Trying to get rid of this stuff - $5 for sweatpants”, etc. This reviewer saw at least three different dog obedience trainers and their students amongst the vendors. There are bouncing cages for the kids, face painting, several bands, and buses to take visitors on tours of the cranberry bogs. Like antiques? Yes, they were there as well. Although this reviewer did not see them, antique and classic cars were scheduled to be there. The buy sell areas are not shown on the map, nor are they even mentioned; however, the areas they are in run right into where the arts & crafts are set up and it looks like one huge event.

This year there were about 110 artists and crafters. Even within the crafting area this reviewer found people selling ornaments purchased in craft supply stores and passing them off as handmade. Also mixed in with the artists & crafters are non-profit and veteran organizations - they are allowed to apply for a booth after the committee is sure the space will not be rented by an exhibitor.

Various groups and homeowners charge $5 for parking and some people walk a mile or more to get to the selling area. We were told in advance that we could only have one parking space but did not realize our cargo trailer counted as one vehicle and our car counted as another. As a result, we had to pay $5 extra each day to park our car.

Unfortunately, that area does not have good cell phone reception; therefore, using the Square charge card reader (or your phone) was next to impossible and most exhibitors just gave up and lost sales. Eventually, we discovered that although spotty, it was possible (with persistence and moving around) to key in the card number (which means the fee was higher) and the charge would go through.

For those exhibitors interested in staying overnight - good luck! There is just no decent place to sleep. We spent a considerable amount of time searching for a place and finally came up with a hotel in Absecon. According to Google, the hotel was 30 minutes from the festival - it was actually 40 minutes. There were smaller motels 30 minutes away, but they didn’t look like anyplace we would feel comfortable sleeping in. There are a few campgrounds close to the festival.

The booths are a generous 15’ x 15’ and the registration fee is $225 for two days. The exhibit area is a very large sand mixed with dirt field which is somewhat level. Thankfully, we had the option of setting up on Friday afternoon and took advantage of this. We were able to pull right up to our space to unload. We were told that the NJ State Police patrol at night so we did not have to take down our booth.

According to the organizers, the Chatsworth Cranberry Arts & Crafts Festival draws anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 over the two days. Those who had exhibited there before indicated that this show was their best show of the year. It was suggested that in setting up our booth we create an ingress and egress because there would be hordes of buyers. We noticed that other exhibitors had lots of stock stored behind their booth. Since the area is not gated, buyers started walking though before the show opened; however, the masses of people everyone spoke about did not come. We did not witness any booth filling up to the point of buyers not being able to get in and out. We did not experience or see what previous exhibitors described. One jeweler indicated that on Saturday, she did 17% better than last year; however, on Sunday she sold nothing. We overheard another crafter say she made $300 on Saturday and didn’t do as well on Sunday. Other crafters in our immediate vicinity indicated they didn’t do as well as expected. We also noticed that many of the crafters took home their boxes of stock.

We will probably go back one more year; however, we will drive home at night to save on lodging.