Street Fairs, Events, Festivals

Hi People. How about letting me know how you did at your events (vendors). I'd really like to hear from you and you can email me at starvingvendors@aol.com. My website is http://www.starvingvendors.com/ and I have many reviews of events to read.

There are many shows each weekend and I'd like you to share that information with me on how you did, problems, the good things, the nightmares, etc.

I just heard from a lady that did the Central Valley Pizza Festival (Lemoore) and she hit the hammer right on the nail. Some of her comments were: we did it for the first and last time!!! There was only four to six "crafter's" there...... the rest was resale and food. Weather was HOT and as another vendor said people were walking around like they were in a daze...... I will give the award for the rudest kids to this street fair...... As a matter of fact, rude is too nice of a word to use. This is the first place I have ever had to ask anyone to leave my space...... There was a guy walking around with the huge snake wrapped around his neck. I saw one girl who was trying to get away fall over a bike..... also saw a vendor fall and they had no way to get an emergency vehicle in there.... but they did walk in to help him.... Also, porta potties were about half way back in the parking lot... and by noon they were filthy.... two porta potties at the end of the street I was on (the carnival end)... Was told they were too expensive to have any more than the two. BTW, I look at your site daily and love it!!

You know what? I believe her because we were vendors last year at this event and I had many of the similar occurences. Click here to read my review of the Pizza Festival Seems like they have to get a whole new bunch of vendors every year.

I would love to hear from other people. Let's hear about the Chandler Ostrich Festival in Arizona. Anybody else do Manteca? Clovis?

Riconada Hills Bazaar

Going to do the Riconada Hills Bazaar in Los Gatos. I guess this is a new location for this promoter's show and is held the last Saturday of the month from 9AM-4PM. Located at 1500 Pollard Road at the shopping center. click here for more info. Alpha Zeta Events.

Evidently, this show was held at a different location previously. Can anybody give me some info about it? Thank you...dave

check out Starving Vendors where you can see reviews from many of the events we have done. Also listings of European, Philippine Festivals and a whole lot more. Great site!! You'll love it.

2009 Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival

Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival. It's that time of year when we start getting our applications for next year's festivals and I am pretty certain that all of us (previous participants) have receive their applications for the Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival in March 2009.

My wife and I had a very rough time this past March there and we pulled out of the event because we were so disgusted by the way Lee Barron treated us. He has no class and doesn't care about the way he treats vendors. We drove over 300 miles to get there and we refused to stay.

If you want to find out why and hear more about Lee Barron and the Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival please read what I had to say about it. My wife was in tears from what he had to say to her. Very humiliating. I spoke to other vendors that did that event and they did terribly. Some left after Saturday because their sales were so disgusting. I am glad we left without setting up. A very very bad show. Has carnival rides and that takes a lot of the money away from the vendors. If you want to listen to my two-cents worth (which is more than I made at this $($(% event) DO NOT DO THIS SHOW. You will not be satisfied. There are other events to do, so stay the heck away. If you are a returning vendor, you pretty know much what I am saying is true. If you are a new vendor who wishes to do this show....my word of advice (and my other vendor friends) is not to even think about it. Stay away. We have been doing events for over 15 years now and never have we been treated so disgustingly.

This weekend's Events - Bay Area

Here's a listing of festivals, etc. in the Bay Area for this weekend. At least visit us in spaces 538-539 at Chabot College Flea Market on Saturday.

Saturday, June 20 Chabot College Flea Market, Hayward
Sat/Sun, Jun 20-21 Art on the Square, Redwood City
www.redwoodcity.org/events
Sat Jun 20 Fine Arts and Crafts Fair, Benicia
http://www.visitbenicia.com/
Sat/Sun, Jun 20-21 Art and Wine Festival, Lafayette http://www.eckerstromproductions.com/
Sat/Sun, Jun 20-21 Gem Faire, Redwood City
http://www.sgms.driftmine.com/
Sat/Sun Jun 20-21 San Francisco Crystal Fair
http://www.crystalfair.com/

Also, this weekend, we have Clovisfest (Clovis, CA), San Bernadino Route 66 Rendevous.

Check out some of our reviews of recent events on our website: Review of Castro Valley

Labor Day Weekend Events

Hi people. There were a number of events this past weekend and I was wondering how everybody/anybody did? Lake Tahoe? Newman? Art and Soul? Casa de Fruta? others? Go ahead and give me your comments on these. We had quite a number of people at Casa de Fruta on Sunday and Monday also. However, I don't think that a lot of vendors did too well. Poor sales....especially on Monday.

This next weekend we (DandL CREATIONS) will be doing the Pittsburg Seafood Festival for the first time. We haven't been able to do this in the past because of conflicts in our schedule. Nice to stay pretty much local..... trying to reduce gas and motel expenses. Just wish some of these promoters could keep their booth fees down. I know that in a lot of shows, vendors are waiting until the last moment possible to sign up and/or make their payments. That includes me also.

It was good ol' Cup of Noodles Monday.

Add-on fees for booth spaces in events

The cost of doing shows has been rising and our net profits are going down. Gas prices have really killed us and we all are cutting back on shows we have to travel distances to.

In many events, promoters have raised their booth fees and a lot of them come up with these 'add-on charges.' Many now require 'city permits' and fees range from $25-$50 and up. A few years back, you hardly ever saw this, but the promoters AND city governments want to extract as much money out of us as possible. There are cities that require a 'police permit' or a 'peddlers permit' and that can run from $25 and up. You provide them with your driver's license, social security number, name, address, etc., and they run a police check on you as if you are a criminal. It's degrading, I think.

Of course a lot of them have 'jury fees' where you send in your application with photos, etc., and they jury you. I admit that it is important to screen out undesirable merchandise and if you are running a quality Arts and Crafts Event, then I really understand. However, a lot of the promoters are following suit and charging you for this in order to collect more money from us. This fee can range from $20 to $50. What bothers me about this is that these fees are non-refundable. You don't get the money back if you are not accepted, which is definitely wrong.

Now think about this. If 10,000 vendors send in applications with a $30 jury fee, then the promoter has collected $300,000 for doing absolutely nothing. Some just take your application and pictures and put them in an envelope. They put on your address and place a $.42 stamp on the envelope. Ahhhhh. That's a NET PROFIT DEAL..... Some promoters can make a nice living off these fees. The double whammy on this is that they are accepting these jury fees even after they have been filled up. They don't even look at the pictures, so there was actually NO JURYING. Do you think that this is legal?

All of us vendors do have canopies, etc. Another gimmick is for promoters to force you to use a canopy that THEY HAVE RENTED from some rental company. Of course, we all have canopies, etc., but many of us prefer to use our own, since ours are easier to set up our displays in. More so, we are being charged one way or another for these rental canopies. You have promoters who order up a hundred, two hundred canopies for a show. They naturally get a good 'rental rate' on these and then they charge perhaps, double what their cost was. That is just another way for them to get money out of vendors.

For more information about vendors, shows, reviews and crazy satirical stories about the business, come on over to Starving Vendors and check things out.