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Last weekend we participated in the Moss Rock Festival, a local show in Hoover, Alabama which is a suburb of Birmingham.  The venue is an upscale planned residential community.  The show is set up with artist's booths on the streets forming the perimeter of the town square, with food vendors, family activities and the beer and wine tent in the square.

We received frequent communication from the organizers leading up to the event.  The artist's coordinator was easy to contact via e-mail and provided quick responses to our questions.  Load in times were staggered as it was a tight fit with a large vehicle since the booths took up one lane of the two lane street. We were able to pull up to our assigned space and had plenty of time to unload before we had to move and make room for our neighbor.  

Despite a steady rain all day on Saturday, there was a surprising number of people who visited our booth.  We made some small sales which exceeded our very low expectations given the weather. We had a great time and expected a better result on Sunday when the weather was predicted to improve.

It was still cloudy and windy Sunday morning but no rain.  We opened early at about 9:30 and there were people already milling about looking at the art.  The crowd built as the day went on.  It started to drizzle again at 3:00pm but the crowd stayed.  Closing was set for 4:00pm and we had people in our booth well past that hour. It was our best sales day ever.  Given that this was our fifth show, we do not have much of a track record, but it was an over whelming success for us, especially considering the poor weather conditions.

Load out was in a steady rain, in the dark.  There were some portable lights set up but we used our flashlights for the most part. Load out tickets were distributed after taxes had been paid and booths were torn down ready to load. This process limited the number of vehicles in a tight space at the same time. Artist parking was in a nearby lot with frequent shuttles running all day.  Patrons from outside the neighborhood were shuttled in from a lot about two miles away.  

It seemed like a well run and organized show to us.  We most of all enjoyed the vibe of the event. The people we interacted with seemed appreciative for our participation and of our work. We did not have a lot of time to check with others on their sales, but based on what we saw walk by our booth, it appeared that folks were purchasing mainly small items with a few large pieces here and there. Overall a good event for us.