Despite the "outlet" moniker, this mall features a fair number of high-end retailers and some fine restaurants, and it's nestled in the "sweet spot" of SW Florida, midway between Naples and Fort Myers.
The Friday setup started at noon, and it was easy to pull in to the parking lot area, or even to the connector road just behind your booth to unload. Heaven help you if the blue skies lured you into thinking that Saturday would bring calm weather, for a front rolled in overnight as predicted and ushered in dark clouds and chilly temperatures on Saturday morning.
Despite that, the crowd hit the gates aggressively at 10 AM, and my neighbors and I were plenty busy until just after noon, when the skies opened up with a downpour. Having kept a close eye on the radar via my trusty iPhone, I already had my spare inventory covered up with a tarp behind the tent. Alas, a half hour later the winds picked up to the 20-25 mph range and partially blew off the tarp while I was chatting with some folks in the next aisle. I dumped about a quarter-inch of water out of the plastic bin that housed my smaller prints, grabbed some paper towels, and began drying off the Clear Bags, hoping for the best. Ultimately, only a few prints had to be brought home for re-matting. But the rains deep-sixed the buying crowd,and some of the artists--about half, by my estimate--left around 4 PM.
Sunday dawned sunny and bright, and the show-goers began browsing well before 10 AM. Although some artists later told me that that they saw lookers, not buyers, the booths that I could see were doing a brisk business. Not that I had any time to visit--I had my busiest afternoon of the season to date, and had to get a booth sitter for 15 minutes so I could hike to my van and get another roll of tape for the credit card machine and extra inventory for the tent walls. And it wasn't just me--a painter near me sold several wall-sized originals for $2500 and up, and the fine jeweler next to me sold a beautiful necklace that was priced at, well, several mortgage payments.
That said, it wasn't ALL roses.
* The nearest port-o-john was somewhere south of Orlando, near as I could tell (I never did find it). So, like many artists and patrons, I found it a lot easier to visit the Dunkin Donuts than make that hike.
* There was some mixed messaging on Saturday afternoon about whether the show would close early: one of the assistants said she was "checking on it," but a few minutes later the promoter came by and said she wouldn't make a decision like that, because "I'm not running your business, you are." Yet still later, another helper came by to record the booth numbers of those who had left in order to remind them that "the show was open 10 to 5", I was told.
* Some of my customers mentioned that getting into the center and to the show parking was the "gridlock from hell", with cars bumper to bumper looping around the lot, looking for nonexistent spaces. So maybe some beefed up police/traffic presence would be a good idea for next year. (Whether there was any on the main roads into the mall, I can't say.)
But however long it took to get there, it seemed that the show-goers didn't mind lugging all those purchases back to their cars, however far away And for those of us who suffered through a lean 2009, that was good news indeed.
Comments