South Lake Tahoe Lake in the Sky Air Show

Lake in the Sky Air Show
Saturday, August 29, 2009 - 8 AM 'til 4 PM'

It’s the Lake Tahoe Air Show's 20th anniversary. Join us in the celebration - at the biggest and best air show in the High Sierra! The Lake In The Sky Air Show at the Lake Tahoe Airport, in South Lake Tahoe, CA on Saturday, August 29th, 2009.

Be here at America's High Altitude Air Show for all the action! You’ll see many of the country’s top aerobatic performers including living legends Bill Cornick and Jon Melby. Plus you'll see the amazing Spencer Suderman defying gravity in his famous Pitts.

http://www.lakeintheskyairshow.com/

Vendor spaces: $50. Att: 10,000

A taste of Russia

Here's an interesting Festival I came across. No way I would do it, but it's something different.

Taste Of Russia- 09" Saturday, August 29, 11:00 AM

St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church 3873 Cherokee AvenueSan Diego, CA 92104(619) 284-9476

Come join us at "The Taste of Russia". Satisfy your pallet with intoxicating traditional Russian dishes like pirogies, katletki and borsht! Watch on- going preformances from a 25 person Russian orchestra and folkloric dance. Enjoy street vendors and a beer garden on a warm Saturday afternoon. Finish the night off with a authentic Russian style "discoteck" The only thing Russian about you can just be rushing over here!! This is a free event and is benefiting "St Nicholas Church".We will see you there! Dosvinayo ( Russian for until we meet) Booth spaces: 10x10 $125

Newark Summerfest

Held during the weekend of August 22-23, 2009 at Newpark Mall in Newark, CA. The promoter's of this event is Festival Productions. A first time event that needs a lot of work to be done.

Dropped by there on Sunday to check it out. Looks like it could be a nice event for people to attend. However, crowds weren't that great and vendors weren't making much money. I drove down Mowry and headed for the entrance to the Mall. I spotted a bunch of booths and headed over there. Lots of traffic congestion and it took me several minutes to get a parking spot. I walked over and discovered that it was a farmer's market and it was hopping. There were quite a few booths there, but the craft fair was not located around there. Went back into the van and drove all the way around the mall until I saw more canopies. They had several food booths, entertainment (?), beer, wine, sufficient number of porta potties and of course, a bunch of vendors and not a whole heck of a lot of shoppers. I am not crazy about 'mall shows' and this one was no exception. This is the first year for the event and from a vendor's standpoint, not very good. Not enough people and not too many buying. I did feel 'energy' there, but it sure the hell wasn't coming from shoppers.

click here to visit website, etc.

Vendor Terminology

Have composed a listing of terminology used during the course of a day selling at events.

Baby-sitting. The act of watching a particular person in your booth, either keeping an eye on somebody who looks like he is about to steal or to keep tabs on little kids grabbing stuff and playing around. Example: I've got to baby-sit these 5 kids looking at the necklaces. Cup of Noodles. This is what I say I am going to eat after a rough day at an event. Example: Well, it looks like I'm going to have Cup of Noodles tonight.

Don't Tell Anyone. A phrase used by a fellow vendor, explaining to you that he/she found a show that's really good and doesn't want any other vendors to know about. Example: I'm doing the xxxxx festival next month and it's really good. Netted a couple thousand. It's not in Craftmaster's. Don't tell anyone. Disclaimer: I'm not lucky enough to come across these kind of shows. But, please if you find one, let me know AND I will definitely not tell anyone.

Doozie. The name for a show that is extremely slow and you are sitting there for hours at a time with virtually no customers

Drink and pee festival. When the temps get pretty hot, you end up drinking a lot and making numerous bathroom trips throughout the day. Example: Hardly anybody buying here. It's so stinking hot. Another drink and pee festival.

Hella tight man. Used by teenagers a couple years ago when they saw something they like. Example: Wow man, that's hella tight, dude.

I can do that. A term used by people when they see their friend or family member interested in buying something unique in order to pursuade them not to buy.

Take the money and run. A common practive amongst a number of promoters whereby they charge high booth fees and provide little in return. Very little money spent on advertising. Also these promoters can be referred to as 'rip-offs'.

Click here to read more.

Dave's Doozie's

This is the newest page of the website and it is appropriately named 'Dave's Doozies' which is a listing and overview of the worst shows that we have ever done in the 17 years we have been doing events. Click here to read about the worst events we have ever done.

The Best of Starving Vendors

Now you can read some of the most hilarious and outrageous material in our Starving Vendors website. It's all there, someplace in the reviews, etc. I have gone through many of the past reviews and have extracted the most interesting. I hope that you enjoy reading these pages and I expect to update periodically. The Best of Starving Vendors

MOONWALK MARVIN. I had some of my Michael Jackson shirts hanging in front. A guy comes over and grabs one of my hats, glances down at the shirts and then places it upon his head. Suddenly, he begins to gyrate and skipping backwards with his version of MJ's moonwalk. Funny, Hilarious, Priceless. You just don't know what you are going to see next.

A Mexican couple came over to our booth and they asked the price of one of our knives. "Ten Dollars," said my wife. The guy looked at my wife. "How about seven dollars?" he asked. My wife then said "No way, Jose." The guy was surprised and his wife suddenly gave him a weird look. "How did you know my name?" he said. "I don't know" my wife said as the wife appeared to be very upset.

A lady came into our booth with a cell phone sticking in her right ear. She walked through our booth and continued talking. She had the 'speaker' on and we could hear the other person talking. Believe me, it was not an interesting conversation. Not hot, not juicy....just kind of babbling. Louise did this...Helen did that.. Well anyways, she continued walking around, not even glancing at our stuff, but she just kept on talking and walking all around our booth....once, twice, three times...... still talking on the phone. She just kept on going around in circles in our booth... It was crazy. In on one side, through the booth and out the other side. Walked around, entered again, etc. Finally after 3 or 4 laps, she finally left and walked down the aisle still talking, still babbling. I certainly hope that she does not use her cell phone while driving or even crossing the street.

Annual Craft Fair and Gift Show - Santa Rosa, CA

Santa Rosa (fairgrounds) Annual Craft Fair and Gift Show Nov-Dec 2009

While looking through Craftmaster, noticed that Santa Rosa is going to have it's the annual Christmas Craft fair and Gift show in December, which will run for three weeks in November and December. Saw that they are getting 500 vendors (doubt it-we haven't forgotten how bad that show was), but that is way too many. They did not have this show the past few years, but we did it before during the middle week of the three and it was bad. Too many vendors and not enough money to go around. Now, we have the poor economy, so that makes it worse. I'd stay the heck away from this one. Three weeks? Uh uh. If you want to see how organized they are, try going to their website. http://www.santarosacraftfair.com/. It's out of whack and so is the show. Maybe they are waiting to get money from vendors to pay for their website, etc. Advisable to stay away from this one.

For more info on shows, events, festivals and a whole lot more, please visit Starving Vendors

Hayward Zucchini Festival - Aug 15-16

Hayward Zucchini Festival, Hayward, CA August 15-16, 2009

THE REVIEW. More vendors this year than last and that led to false beliefs that this show might be better. Art and Soul Festival in Oakland was moved to this week from Labor Day for unexplained reasons and could have affected attendance here in Hayward. Crowds were substantially lower on Saturday than last year and Sunday's crowd showed a decrease also. The weather was great and should have brought out more people from their cribs, especially since the Raiders and Niner's were not playing. Many unhappy vendors around as we all had to sit around for hours and hours with few sales.

To read the rest of the review, please click here.

Tillamook County Fair - August 5-8

Tillamook County Fair, OR August 5-8

REVIEW of the fair: A brutally agonizing show for vendors to do. I found out that a good number of the vendors were new, especially in the area where I was located, near one of the gates where people enter and exit without turning their heads as the passed by. Seemingly, attendees were much disinterested in what we are selling. Fair is quite expensive for them and after paying for admission, food, rides and games, there just isn't money left over. A lot of people for this one and it's upsetting to have so few people actually come into your booth or look at your goods.

To read more, please click here.

Meridian Square Bazaar/Fair in San Jose, CA

Salida Town and Country Fair and Festival

Salida, CA Saturday, August 22.


The booth fees for this event were quite reasonable. $75 for commercial, like us and $50 for A&C. Can't go too nutso over that? The information for the show said that it starts at 11:00 am and ended at 4:00 pm. So, we left home at 6:45 and drove down to Winchau's Donuts (spelling is correct.... formerly Winchell's but Chinese took it over) in San Lorenzo and picked up a bit to eat on the way. Salida is located on Highway 99, just south of Ripon and we arrived there around 8:00 So, if the show starts at 11:00 that meant we had 3 hours to set up. However, as we approached the event, I saw that 90 percent of the people were already set up and open for business. I most definitely didn't miss a darn thing. Amazing. I checked in and got my space number and was given directions to our space. I guess there were about 2 1/2 blocks of booths and I would say that 40-45 of them were vendors There were other non-profits and 5 food booths.





click here to read more on Starving Vendors

Sunk in the Lake

LAKE COUNTY FAIR. Just heard from them last week after giving them more than a month to decide. Fair is Labor Day Weekend. I sent in my application and they took their time responding. Several weeks ago, I was told that they had a 'new administration' and they were taking a long time deciding. After that, I attempted to get a decision by them and emailed them several times. Finally, last week I recieved a response:

I apologize for not meeting your expectations. However, at this time, we do not have a space for your merchandise. For a better chance in finding booth space at this fair, I would suggest putting in your application much sooner than the middle of July. Many of our vendors place an application with us just after they are posted on our web site in January. Thank you for your interest in our fair. ...... Ray

and I responded:Why didn't you tell me this in the first place? (no space) I am not impressed at all with the way this was handled and I really have no interest in ever doing your fair. Gosh, do you treat everybody like this? You people are terrible and quite inconsiderate and of course, I will pass this information on to my fellow vendors.

NOTE: If you hang on to an application longer than a week, then one would assume that they have been accepted. If you are filled with vendors, all you need to do is to inform people that you are full and that's the end of it. This is not a rocket science, you know. I am not somebody who is going to get three, maybe four spaces and I am sure that you would handle things differently. But me, I am a struggling vendor trying to make ends meet just like everybody else out there and I wish that you would treat us with a little dignity and respect instead of tossing our paperwork aside. I don't appreciate that and I am sure you wouldn't either if you were put in the same situation. Don't bullshit me, okay? One of these days, when you are struggling to find vendors, don't ever come looking for me. Seriously, if you treated me like this now, I can only imagine getting even more shafted if I were there. Hasta la vista, baby. And I speak for all the vendors around that have ever had this happen to them....You can kiss my ass!!

I have talked to people who are familiar with Ray and the Lake County Fair and they basically gave me good reports. But as far as I am concerned, their reputation is tainted and this could happen to you. I would like to encourage vendors to contact any event they submit applications for after one week has elapsed. Most importantly, ask them when their decision will be made.