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And so it begins...
Friendly neighborhood quilter.
Background info: Last year at the state fair I won my first blue ribbon. This year I won 2 more blue ribbons, so I'm officially moved into the "Master Quilter" category.
Also the quilt from this story: http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=77398 was purchased as a prop for the Broadway play "Misery".
The venue that hosts Really Big Craft Show decided to tear down and rebuild one of their older buildings. Unfortunately, it's the building that our booth has been in for the past 25 years. So we were informed last year that for the 2015 show that we would be in a tent in the parking lot. They couldn't tell us the size of the tents, so we weren't sure if our regular 8ft tall displays would fit. We decided to go from a 10x20ft booth to a 10x10 since we'll be outside. Mom asks me to design the booth layout.
Onto the tales:
In the summer I bought new 6ft tall displays for the booth. I bought enough for a 10x20 since we have other shows. Set me back $400, but we needed shorter displays.
I worked for 6 weeks trying to design a good half size booth layout. I finally came up with one that was fair to both of us, and allowed us to fit everything in our two cars, without having to deal with Deadbeat Uncle and the truck.
I showed mom the booth layout and she went off on me, telling me it was stupid and I was wasting her time, that she had a much better booth layout. Her layout was a ton more complex and had all of her stuff up front (of course). I asked her why did she want me to do the layout if she was going to do her own. She denied ever asking me to do the layout.
Mom decided also at the last minute that our display pieces wouldn't fit in our cars. I told her that they would and sent her a photo of them loaded into my car. She complained more and I told her that if she was worried, that I'd rent a van to haul things. She said to rent a van for the weekend that it would cost $150, and "that's a lot of money." She said she'd rather hire Deadbeat Uncle and the truck to help. I reminded her that last year Uncle demanded $25/hour to "supervise" us, plus gas money for the truck, plus a $50 lunch at the fancy steak place downtown. So by the time we got set up, we'd already paid him $275 to stand around and watch us load/unload and set up everything. She was bound and determined to deal with Uncle, and after a few hours of back and forth, I gave up.
We've been keeping a closer eye on the weather then normal for this time of year since we'll be outside the entire time. For the last 4 years it's been warm and sunny for the show, but this year it's back to cold and rainy. In fact they're forecasting massive thunderstorms for the entire weekend. And all of our stuff is made of fabric and yarn.
It finally comes time to get everything loaded up - mom calls me a "retard" for something I couldn't possibly have dealt with previously. I told her that I don't like being called that, and it's very rude. She shrugs and says "See you tomorrow for set up."
Thursday: Set up Day
We get out to Venue and it's a mess. There are usually 5 entrances and a regular traffic flow. They have only 1 entrance open, and most roads are blocked with trailers of people setting up. While it normally takes me 20 minutes to drive in and find a parking spot takes over an hour of circling the buildings and finding an open road to a parking lot.
Locate our patch of parking lot and we are in a canopy - not a tent. We have no walls and rain is in the forecast. We scrambled to get everything under the canopy. Rain was predicted to start at 3pm, it started at 12:30. Workers came around with 10x30 plastic walls to clip onto the canopy top. We were told we are responsible for putting the walls on, and are given no instruction on how to do so.
We got everything in under the canopy as quickly as possible and start setting up. Doll Lady from the Bordello (remember her?) is behind us and to the right. She gives us a head's up about our new neighbors to the left. She calls them "holy rollers" and says that they don't like cursing, loud talking or laughter. Well, I'm sorry, but profanity is one of the only ways we know how to set up a booth. We try our best to tone it down, but still get lots of grumpy looks.
Grumpy neighbors get set up fairly quickly, then ask us to hang up the wall around their tent. I must have given them a funny look because they shook their heads, then picked up one of the walls and started clipping it up. They weren't paying attention, and clipped it up incorrectly, starting at their booth and wrapping around the corner, leaving our booth open. The wall was supposed to start at our booth and wrap completely around theirs. Husband of the pair asks us what to do with the extra ten feet of wall. We shrug because we are trying to get set up before the rain starts. They leave.
Rain starts soon afterwards. We go to clip our wall and see that the neighbors skipped our booth. Grabbing the other wall we start to clip it up over our booth to keep the blowing rain out. Neighbors show back up, and take the rest of the wall to double wrap their booth. Really against the rules and now the 2 booths directly behind both of us have no protection from the rain. They leave again and we don't see them again until Friday.
Rain is pouring down outside and we are scrambling inside to get everything displayed nicely. We have little light now that the wall is closed and we are trying to get the tables in the right spots, put table covers on and get things looking nice. It is around this time that our neighbors behind us show up. We recognize them immediately because they are normally to the left of us. They are from north Texas and sell boutique clothing. They run in the rain and get their displays put up then roll in racks of clothing. Because of their running in and out in the rain, water starts to pool in their booth and flow into ours. We rush to get everything up off the ground. Once they get all their clothing in the booth, the seven of them stand around and start to complain. Honestly they put toddlers to shame with they way they were carrying on. That it wasn't fair that they were in a tent (you knew about it last year!) They didn't know it was going to rain (You didn't check the weather at all during your 3 hour drive north?) Their merchandise is worth a lot of money and they don't want to ruin it. (Hello? McFly?) After an hour of this, they pull out their paperwork saying "I'll call the owners, and they'll put us in a building. This is bullshit being out in these tents!" They tried to get us riled up, but I replied. "I knew I was going to be in a tent, and I'm dealing with it the best I can. I can't afford to go back on the waiting list."
They cursed someone out on the phone for a few minutes, then hung up and complained some more. One of our building mangers came over - I guess whoever got cursed out called her. She explained to them that they had two options. Either set up in the rain and deal with it like everyone else, or they could leave and because they were being extremely rude, they wouldn't be welcome back. And no refund either, that's explained in their paperwork that they're waving around in everyone's faces. After the building manager leaves, they complain some more, then start packing everything back up. Mom comments that it must be nice to be able to throw away $750 like that.
Mom's boyfriend who is helping us out breaks his glasses and starts whining, so mom decided to take him home. At this point it's 2pm and we have maybe a third of the booth done. It's hard to shuffle around things and make it look nice when we have 3 inches of water in our booth. They leave and I bust my butt and get the rest of the booth set up and looking nice. I have to stop every 15 minutes or so to push the rain off of the canopy above me. Around 4pm a gentleman comes around and tells me that I have the wall clipped up wrong and it's making the water pool on the canopy. I thank him and stand on a chair to fix our wall. Because the neighbors double wrapped their booth, this gentleman can't get into their booth to knock out the water accumulating above their booth. He shrugs and goes to check on other people.
Mom returns and I tell her that I have to rest of the booth done. She complains that I did it wrong (I followed her instructions and the layout she made) and she begins to redo it. My socks are soaked through my sneakers from dealing with the mini-lake on the floor and I am grumpy and want to go home, but I keep rearranging everything until she is happy and we can make the hike out to our cars and go home.
Friday - Day 1 of the show
The skies are looking threatening and we are hoping for some people. As I am making the 1/4 mile hike in from the parking lot I see a lot of empty tents.It looked like easily a quarter to a third of the tents were empty. I guess there were a lot of tantrums yesterday.
Reached our tent and started to unclip our wall so we can do some damage control since it rained overnight. Holy Rollers show up and start throwing a fit. Apparently after we left it kept raining. And since their double layer wall was both clipped wrong, and too secure for anyone to get in; the canopy was slowly pulled down throughout the night to a point where the rainwater ran down inside their booth. Somehow they blamed us for this, because we had potty mouths yesterday. We sigh, roll our eyes and get to straightening up our booth. There are still 3 inches of standing water in the middle of our booth, so we put down flat cardboard boxes to soak it up. I am wearing my rain boots because I don't want cold wet toes all day. Weatherman says it will be nice today, so we are hoping that some people decide to shop in the tents.
By mid morning, it was a madhouse. Tons of people outside. I overheard some complaining that they wanted to go inside a building because there were too many people outside. I was selling potholders left, right, and sideways. I had a few people come in to look at the quilts. I had only brought a few quilts because we were in half the space we're used to, and we're outside.
Lady: Oh, it's so beautiful. How much are the quilts?
Me: Thank you, all the quilts are $150 each.
Lady: What size it it?
Me: (Not thinking that I need to speak customerese now) It's 45" x 60".
Lady: What is that, a queen or a king size?
Me: No ma'am, it's a lap size, or it fits on a toddler bed.
Lady: What the hell? For this piece of crap?
Me: ???
Once it was closing time the neighbors to the left of us came by and told me that I need to put up the "wall" for them, and "Make sure to do it right this time, lazy girl!" The husband saw the look on my face, rolled his eyes and did it himself.
Saturday - Day 2 of the show
Freezing cold! Normally Saturday is a great day for sales, but being outside in the freezing cold, we figure that's it's going to be bad.
We started out slow, but things picked up quickly. One of my friends in the building behind us was complaining that it was dead in there yesterday. I guess everyone wanted to visit me.
I found out on my first credit card sale of the day that my mom doesn't know how to use the square app, and all of our credit card sales for Friday were "given away". *sigh*. Luckily Saturday was very busy, I was lucky to get a bathroom break. I sold a ton of potholders, and most of the booths around us are grumpy and complaining about the lack of sales. At least the holy rollers next door aren't complaining about us and asking us to do their work for them.
Sunday - Day 3 of the show
Warmer then Saturday, thank God. Because we were outside, there were a lot of people with their dogs, and a lot of people smoking. Both dogs and smoking are banned by the venue, but we all know how well people listen.
Large group of women wearing matching t-shirts walk up. (This is pretty standard for this show ) They start haggling badly. "I'll give you $3 for these 2 potholders (instead of $10)" "Why won't you take $20 for this ($150) quilt?" Mom and I were very confused until finally one of the ladies shouted. "This is the worst flea market I've ever been to!"
After they left we had a lot more "flea market" people. That was fun.
So apparently charging $8 to get in, same weekend as really big craft show, same area as really big craft show, the guide book for really big craft show mentions the TENTS, but no the tents are a flea market that just so happens to be located near really big craft show.
We also had customers come up and ask us if we paid less for our booths because we're outside. We said no - we paid the same amount and we were threatened. We also found out on Sunday that the booth rent is going up again - it's now $415 for a 10x10 or $800 for a 10x20. And the venue is now going to start charging for parking. *sigh*
We had to tear down a lot faster then normal because it was getting dark and we were outside with no lights. People were angry and cranky and I nearly got ran over a few times.
All in all, I had a successful show. I planned ahead knowing I was going to be in a tent and dealing with cheap people. I didn't sell a single quilt - but inside the tents was dark and people couldn't see them. I handed out a lot of flyers and that's alright. By the time we started packing up I already had quilt orders coming in.
Background info: Last year at the state fair I won my first blue ribbon. This year I won 2 more blue ribbons, so I'm officially moved into the "Master Quilter" category.
Also the quilt from this story: http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=77398 was purchased as a prop for the Broadway play "Misery".
The venue that hosts Really Big Craft Show decided to tear down and rebuild one of their older buildings. Unfortunately, it's the building that our booth has been in for the past 25 years. So we were informed last year that for the 2015 show that we would be in a tent in the parking lot. They couldn't tell us the size of the tents, so we weren't sure if our regular 8ft tall displays would fit. We decided to go from a 10x20ft booth to a 10x10 since we'll be outside. Mom asks me to design the booth layout.
Onto the tales:
In the summer I bought new 6ft tall displays for the booth. I bought enough for a 10x20 since we have other shows. Set me back $400, but we needed shorter displays.
I worked for 6 weeks trying to design a good half size booth layout. I finally came up with one that was fair to both of us, and allowed us to fit everything in our two cars, without having to deal with Deadbeat Uncle and the truck.
I showed mom the booth layout and she went off on me, telling me it was stupid and I was wasting her time, that she had a much better booth layout. Her layout was a ton more complex and had all of her stuff up front (of course). I asked her why did she want me to do the layout if she was going to do her own. She denied ever asking me to do the layout.
Mom decided also at the last minute that our display pieces wouldn't fit in our cars. I told her that they would and sent her a photo of them loaded into my car. She complained more and I told her that if she was worried, that I'd rent a van to haul things. She said to rent a van for the weekend that it would cost $150, and "that's a lot of money." She said she'd rather hire Deadbeat Uncle and the truck to help. I reminded her that last year Uncle demanded $25/hour to "supervise" us, plus gas money for the truck, plus a $50 lunch at the fancy steak place downtown. So by the time we got set up, we'd already paid him $275 to stand around and watch us load/unload and set up everything. She was bound and determined to deal with Uncle, and after a few hours of back and forth, I gave up.
We've been keeping a closer eye on the weather then normal for this time of year since we'll be outside the entire time. For the last 4 years it's been warm and sunny for the show, but this year it's back to cold and rainy. In fact they're forecasting massive thunderstorms for the entire weekend. And all of our stuff is made of fabric and yarn.
It finally comes time to get everything loaded up - mom calls me a "retard" for something I couldn't possibly have dealt with previously. I told her that I don't like being called that, and it's very rude. She shrugs and says "See you tomorrow for set up."
Thursday: Set up Day
We get out to Venue and it's a mess. There are usually 5 entrances and a regular traffic flow. They have only 1 entrance open, and most roads are blocked with trailers of people setting up. While it normally takes me 20 minutes to drive in and find a parking spot takes over an hour of circling the buildings and finding an open road to a parking lot.
Locate our patch of parking lot and we are in a canopy - not a tent. We have no walls and rain is in the forecast. We scrambled to get everything under the canopy. Rain was predicted to start at 3pm, it started at 12:30. Workers came around with 10x30 plastic walls to clip onto the canopy top. We were told we are responsible for putting the walls on, and are given no instruction on how to do so.
We got everything in under the canopy as quickly as possible and start setting up. Doll Lady from the Bordello (remember her?) is behind us and to the right. She gives us a head's up about our new neighbors to the left. She calls them "holy rollers" and says that they don't like cursing, loud talking or laughter. Well, I'm sorry, but profanity is one of the only ways we know how to set up a booth. We try our best to tone it down, but still get lots of grumpy looks.
Grumpy neighbors get set up fairly quickly, then ask us to hang up the wall around their tent. I must have given them a funny look because they shook their heads, then picked up one of the walls and started clipping it up. They weren't paying attention, and clipped it up incorrectly, starting at their booth and wrapping around the corner, leaving our booth open. The wall was supposed to start at our booth and wrap completely around theirs. Husband of the pair asks us what to do with the extra ten feet of wall. We shrug because we are trying to get set up before the rain starts. They leave.
Rain starts soon afterwards. We go to clip our wall and see that the neighbors skipped our booth. Grabbing the other wall we start to clip it up over our booth to keep the blowing rain out. Neighbors show back up, and take the rest of the wall to double wrap their booth. Really against the rules and now the 2 booths directly behind both of us have no protection from the rain. They leave again and we don't see them again until Friday.
Rain is pouring down outside and we are scrambling inside to get everything displayed nicely. We have little light now that the wall is closed and we are trying to get the tables in the right spots, put table covers on and get things looking nice. It is around this time that our neighbors behind us show up. We recognize them immediately because they are normally to the left of us. They are from north Texas and sell boutique clothing. They run in the rain and get their displays put up then roll in racks of clothing. Because of their running in and out in the rain, water starts to pool in their booth and flow into ours. We rush to get everything up off the ground. Once they get all their clothing in the booth, the seven of them stand around and start to complain. Honestly they put toddlers to shame with they way they were carrying on. That it wasn't fair that they were in a tent (you knew about it last year!) They didn't know it was going to rain (You didn't check the weather at all during your 3 hour drive north?) Their merchandise is worth a lot of money and they don't want to ruin it. (Hello? McFly?) After an hour of this, they pull out their paperwork saying "I'll call the owners, and they'll put us in a building. This is bullshit being out in these tents!" They tried to get us riled up, but I replied. "I knew I was going to be in a tent, and I'm dealing with it the best I can. I can't afford to go back on the waiting list."
They cursed someone out on the phone for a few minutes, then hung up and complained some more. One of our building mangers came over - I guess whoever got cursed out called her. She explained to them that they had two options. Either set up in the rain and deal with it like everyone else, or they could leave and because they were being extremely rude, they wouldn't be welcome back. And no refund either, that's explained in their paperwork that they're waving around in everyone's faces. After the building manager leaves, they complain some more, then start packing everything back up. Mom comments that it must be nice to be able to throw away $750 like that.
Mom's boyfriend who is helping us out breaks his glasses and starts whining, so mom decided to take him home. At this point it's 2pm and we have maybe a third of the booth done. It's hard to shuffle around things and make it look nice when we have 3 inches of water in our booth. They leave and I bust my butt and get the rest of the booth set up and looking nice. I have to stop every 15 minutes or so to push the rain off of the canopy above me. Around 4pm a gentleman comes around and tells me that I have the wall clipped up wrong and it's making the water pool on the canopy. I thank him and stand on a chair to fix our wall. Because the neighbors double wrapped their booth, this gentleman can't get into their booth to knock out the water accumulating above their booth. He shrugs and goes to check on other people.
Mom returns and I tell her that I have to rest of the booth done. She complains that I did it wrong (I followed her instructions and the layout she made) and she begins to redo it. My socks are soaked through my sneakers from dealing with the mini-lake on the floor and I am grumpy and want to go home, but I keep rearranging everything until she is happy and we can make the hike out to our cars and go home.
Friday - Day 1 of the show
The skies are looking threatening and we are hoping for some people. As I am making the 1/4 mile hike in from the parking lot I see a lot of empty tents.It looked like easily a quarter to a third of the tents were empty. I guess there were a lot of tantrums yesterday.
Reached our tent and started to unclip our wall so we can do some damage control since it rained overnight. Holy Rollers show up and start throwing a fit. Apparently after we left it kept raining. And since their double layer wall was both clipped wrong, and too secure for anyone to get in; the canopy was slowly pulled down throughout the night to a point where the rainwater ran down inside their booth. Somehow they blamed us for this, because we had potty mouths yesterday. We sigh, roll our eyes and get to straightening up our booth. There are still 3 inches of standing water in the middle of our booth, so we put down flat cardboard boxes to soak it up. I am wearing my rain boots because I don't want cold wet toes all day. Weatherman says it will be nice today, so we are hoping that some people decide to shop in the tents.
By mid morning, it was a madhouse. Tons of people outside. I overheard some complaining that they wanted to go inside a building because there were too many people outside. I was selling potholders left, right, and sideways. I had a few people come in to look at the quilts. I had only brought a few quilts because we were in half the space we're used to, and we're outside.
Lady: Oh, it's so beautiful. How much are the quilts?
Me: Thank you, all the quilts are $150 each.
Lady: What size it it?
Me: (Not thinking that I need to speak customerese now) It's 45" x 60".
Lady: What is that, a queen or a king size?
Me: No ma'am, it's a lap size, or it fits on a toddler bed.
Lady: What the hell? For this piece of crap?
Me: ???
Once it was closing time the neighbors to the left of us came by and told me that I need to put up the "wall" for them, and "Make sure to do it right this time, lazy girl!" The husband saw the look on my face, rolled his eyes and did it himself.
Saturday - Day 2 of the show
Freezing cold! Normally Saturday is a great day for sales, but being outside in the freezing cold, we figure that's it's going to be bad.
We started out slow, but things picked up quickly. One of my friends in the building behind us was complaining that it was dead in there yesterday. I guess everyone wanted to visit me.
I found out on my first credit card sale of the day that my mom doesn't know how to use the square app, and all of our credit card sales for Friday were "given away". *sigh*. Luckily Saturday was very busy, I was lucky to get a bathroom break. I sold a ton of potholders, and most of the booths around us are grumpy and complaining about the lack of sales. At least the holy rollers next door aren't complaining about us and asking us to do their work for them.
Sunday - Day 3 of the show
Warmer then Saturday, thank God. Because we were outside, there were a lot of people with their dogs, and a lot of people smoking. Both dogs and smoking are banned by the venue, but we all know how well people listen.
Large group of women wearing matching t-shirts walk up. (This is pretty standard for this show ) They start haggling badly. "I'll give you $3 for these 2 potholders (instead of $10)" "Why won't you take $20 for this ($150) quilt?" Mom and I were very confused until finally one of the ladies shouted. "This is the worst flea market I've ever been to!"
After they left we had a lot more "flea market" people. That was fun.
So apparently charging $8 to get in, same weekend as really big craft show, same area as really big craft show, the guide book for really big craft show mentions the TENTS, but no the tents are a flea market that just so happens to be located near really big craft show.
We also had customers come up and ask us if we paid less for our booths because we're outside. We said no - we paid the same amount and we were threatened. We also found out on Sunday that the booth rent is going up again - it's now $415 for a 10x10 or $800 for a 10x20. And the venue is now going to start charging for parking. *sigh*
We had to tear down a lot faster then normal because it was getting dark and we were outside with no lights. People were angry and cranky and I nearly got ran over a few times.
All in all, I had a successful show. I planned ahead knowing I was going to be in a tent and dealing with cheap people. I didn't sell a single quilt - but inside the tents was dark and people couldn't see them. I handed out a lot of flyers and that's alright. By the time we started packing up I already had quilt orders coming in.
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