Saturday, July 19, 2008

Winchester Bay Oceanfest

July 19. Opened up at 8:40. Just about everybody else had opened up. Some people walking around. Topay was a bit cooler and the winds picked up around 10:30AM and continued throughout the day. A little stronger than yesterday. Never have I ever seen two days of wind like this. My windiest show ever.

More people today and sales were much better... in line with what we did last year. Gosh, how can anybody walk around the booths in this friggin wind. All day long...again. The winds lasted past midnite last evening and I guess more of the same. Don't know how we'll be able to take our things down tomorrow. Hopefully, it will not be as windy in Myrtle Point for the Coos Counjty Fair, which begins on Tuesday.

Voice of the Vendor

Hello fellow vendors. I now have an area on my Starving Vendors website where you can view comments made regarding shows, festivals, promoters, etc. If you have done a show recently (good or bad), place your remarks in the 'comments' area below and I will put them on the following page:

http://www.starvingvendors.com/voice_of_the_vendor.html

I will post this notice every Monday and I would like to hear from our vendors out there on how they did the previous weekend. Thank you very much.

Winchester Bay Oceanfest

July 18. Friday. A typical Friday as far as sales and crowds go. It was sunny most of the day with arriving and departing clouds. The winds blew and sales sucked. Take it from there. Winds began to increase just before noontime and did not let up until late PM.

We drove over early...... 8:15 AM to make sure we could get a parking space nearby. I was expecting a large crowd? Uh uh uh uh. Around 9:00 we walked over to our space to prepare things for the day and to finalize our set up. It was like a ghost town. The streets were still rolled up! Hardly a soul, but the event started at 10:00. There were some vendors open and maybe 5 people walking the street.... Early 'lookers' are usually flea marketeers.

The day started very slow and the 'crowds' increased just after noontime. Look like mostly tourists came by. Quite a numbe of families with kids that had the 'itchy finger syndrome.' The winds were pretty fierce all afternoon, whipping around the top part of our canopies. However, the canopies barely swayed due to the precautios we took by adding lots of weight to the legs.

I suppose there were some return vendors that did pretty decently, but it was obvious that the people were not buying very much. The weather this time around is much better than last year, when we had some scattered showers and a 'Watch out for Flying Canopies' Thursday and Friday.

Regardless, we will return here next year, as this is the front end of four events for us and I prefer to kick off things with a weekend event. Four county fairs is just a bit too lon for me.

So people, come on over to Space 58 at the Winchester Bay (OR) Oceanfest and see what DandL Creations has to offer. We've got a good deal for you... we've got shoulder bags, fanny packs, backpacks, wrap-around skirts and pants, animal backpacks for the younger people, stools, amethyst, dream catchers, beautiful hand-made shell necklaces, hats, visors, shell creations and a whole lot more. Bring your money...bring your checkbooks, bring your credit cards. Come on down to the Winchester Bay Oceanfest.