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I'm vending at a county fair this weekend. We have made a pretty decent profit so far (and still have tomorrow to go) so I don't want to complain, but there are some things I've noticed that are...interesting and/or annoying.
1) Unsupervised kids
This is the biggest annoyance/gripe I have. It's a lot more common at the fair than at, say, the anime cons we've vended at, which I guess kinda makes sense? Anyway, there have been a lot of kids who walk up and start poking at my stuff, picking up the shinies, etc. A lot of my displays have gotten messed up (not a big deal, I can rearrange them), some stuff has been damaged (not too bad for the most part, the stuff that's gotten damaged has been easily repairable) and at least one little girl grabbed something and then went running off to her mom at the booth next door to show her. The little girl was only about 3 so I don't think she was actually trying to "steal" the item. But if I hadn't followed her and found her mom, I probably would've lost the item.
2) Organizers who don't give clear details
When I signed up for this event, the vendor registration form said that we had to be at our booths from 5-9pm Friday night and 10am-10pm Saturday and Sunday. What they DIDN'T say, at any time during or after the registration process, was that they were actually going to be open later than that as long as there were customers around and vendors wanted to stay. We ended up being there till past 11 tonight 'cuz we didn't want to leave our stuff (we're in a secured building that's locked each night, but only after all the vendors have gone) while there were still customers around. 13 hours is a friggin' long day with no real breaks and dealing with customers all day.
3) Vendors who don't follow the rules
As mentioned, the vendor registration form said that we had to be set up from 5-9pm on Friday and 10-10 Sat and Sun, and that vendors who don't keep their booths operating during the required hours would not be welcomed back to the fair in the future. The vendor booth directly behind us was unoccupied Friday night so we thought maybe either no one had paid for that booth, or if someone had registered it that they had backed out last minute or something and couldn't make it. But no...they were there and set up this morning when we got in. Also, there is a huge booth (it's at least 3 normal booth sizes large) across from us selling handmade wood worked items, like tables, chairs, desks, benches, etc. There was one person working the booth most of the day, but at around 8:30 this evening, a customer came up and asked if I knew where that vendor was. We looked around but couldn't find her. I sort of kept an eye on her booth (most of her stuff is pretty huge so it'd be hard to get it out of there without someone noticing) and didn't see her again for the rest of the night. She didn't leave a sign, or let any of the neighboring vendors know where she was (I asked everyone around us.)
For the most part it's been fun and we've done pretty well. I've made a lot of friends of the other vendors around us, and we got some homemade jelly from one of them. These are just some observations I made and wanted to share. I'm really tired and gonna go collapse now.
1) Unsupervised kids
This is the biggest annoyance/gripe I have. It's a lot more common at the fair than at, say, the anime cons we've vended at, which I guess kinda makes sense? Anyway, there have been a lot of kids who walk up and start poking at my stuff, picking up the shinies, etc. A lot of my displays have gotten messed up (not a big deal, I can rearrange them), some stuff has been damaged (not too bad for the most part, the stuff that's gotten damaged has been easily repairable) and at least one little girl grabbed something and then went running off to her mom at the booth next door to show her. The little girl was only about 3 so I don't think she was actually trying to "steal" the item. But if I hadn't followed her and found her mom, I probably would've lost the item.
2) Organizers who don't give clear details
When I signed up for this event, the vendor registration form said that we had to be at our booths from 5-9pm Friday night and 10am-10pm Saturday and Sunday. What they DIDN'T say, at any time during or after the registration process, was that they were actually going to be open later than that as long as there were customers around and vendors wanted to stay. We ended up being there till past 11 tonight 'cuz we didn't want to leave our stuff (we're in a secured building that's locked each night, but only after all the vendors have gone) while there were still customers around. 13 hours is a friggin' long day with no real breaks and dealing with customers all day.
3) Vendors who don't follow the rules
As mentioned, the vendor registration form said that we had to be set up from 5-9pm on Friday and 10-10 Sat and Sun, and that vendors who don't keep their booths operating during the required hours would not be welcomed back to the fair in the future. The vendor booth directly behind us was unoccupied Friday night so we thought maybe either no one had paid for that booth, or if someone had registered it that they had backed out last minute or something and couldn't make it. But no...they were there and set up this morning when we got in. Also, there is a huge booth (it's at least 3 normal booth sizes large) across from us selling handmade wood worked items, like tables, chairs, desks, benches, etc. There was one person working the booth most of the day, but at around 8:30 this evening, a customer came up and asked if I knew where that vendor was. We looked around but couldn't find her. I sort of kept an eye on her booth (most of her stuff is pretty huge so it'd be hard to get it out of there without someone noticing) and didn't see her again for the rest of the night. She didn't leave a sign, or let any of the neighboring vendors know where she was (I asked everyone around us.)
For the most part it's been fun and we've done pretty well. I've made a lot of friends of the other vendors around us, and we got some homemade jelly from one of them. These are just some observations I made and wanted to share. I'm really tired and gonna go collapse now.
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