We were anticipating a good weekend for this year’s Sequim Lavender Festival Street Fair (July 19-21). The weather forecast was PERFECT!! Unlike last year where it rained 2 out of 3 days and everything was a soggy mess with a river running through our booth. However, we still did well enough last year to say it was worth returning, thinking that perfect weather would bring out bigger crowds and improve our sales. With a forecast of sunshine and temps in the 70’s we were anticipating a huge crowd and a fun weekend.
Logistic details really haven’t changed for this show, I gave quite a few details in last year’s blog. We had the same booth location as last year with the same great location to park our 5th wheel. Gotta love these shows that give us free RV parking with walking distance of the booth, got to go “home” for lunch each day, never had to use the porta potties once all weekend. Yep, there are some advantages to having a home on wheels parked close by.
Last year’s blog for anyone interested in logistics: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profiles/blogs/sequim-lavender-festival-2012
A couple of changes from last year, booth fees went up by $20 and the artist hospitality booth was eliminated. So, with our RV parked so close we ended up providing coffee for a couple of artist friends who were car camping and didn’t realize the hospitality booth was gone and had expected to at least have a cup of coffee and a bagel or something at the show.
End results for this year? Down 25% from last year, not quite what we had hoped for or expected. Friday we started off with great sales, we only had 11 sales all day, most of the in the morning, but they were large sales. Our average sale was over $100 per sale so we were very pleased, thinking we were off to a great start for the weekend. That turned out to be our best sales day, much to our dismay. Saturday the crowd seemed to change drastically, all low price point sales, lots of requests for discounts, more comments / surprise when we charged sales tax, like they thought this was a hobby, not a business. Sunday sales were even worse, about ½ of Saturday and the crowd never materialized making for a very slow day and way too much time to visit with our artist friends.
So, is this a show we’ll do again? Not sure, the sales we had this weekend were about on par with a 2 day show that we did for 5 years before trying this one last year, held the same weekend with a lower booth fee and where we built a good following. However, this one still attracts more people and tourists and just seems like a show where the overall results should be better. More thinking and analyzing to do on this one.
Comments
Virginia - I did not include a lot of the details about Sequim, etc this year. It was in last year's blog that I included a link to, not very hard to find if you're really interested.
That being said, I do agree that we need to include a location, I'm just getting back into show review mode after a few months of other activities so sorry I messed it up this time.
Ruth Thanks for the review I just have one small request. Would people pleaseeeee!! Give the location of the show and not just the show name. I know that some people are familiar with certain shows but a bunch of us are not. Thanks
Lisa - understand your point and since there are so few non-rain days in this part of the country, it can be an issue. However, last year we had total downpours at this show and there was still more of a crowd.
Ruth, Thanks again for the review. Sometimes I think "perfect" weather may hurt sales. People are out doing other outdoor things. When there's off and on rain or threatening maybe they figure they can sneak in the show between showers. A total downpour, that's a different story.