Erica is writing on the luckiest day of the year.

I'll be sharing my thoughts on The Summer Show later in this blog.

I'm writing this blog at my desk at work...it is currently 8:57 a.m on Wednesday, August 26th, 2015.  According to my coworker, Rachel (who is reading Vogue magazine online at the moment), today is the luckiest day of the year. Jupiter and the sun are aligned with Venus or something like that. I'm not a writer for Vogue so I don't really understand the logic behind this luck theory but I'll believe it. We all need some luck every once in a while. The magazine also offered us all a  tidbit of advice according to our sun sign. (Sagittarius power!!) Mine was career oriented. I'm supposed to take the "big leap" and plow forward toward my dream job. Funny thing is that I'm actually debating whether or not I should apply for another craft show. I think I should trust my horoscope & apply today and see how accurate astrology actually is. LOL

While at The Summer Show, I received a flyer invitation for vendors for the PC West Fest. Booth fee is only $40, the show is indoors and in OKC. Meets all my standards. I initially wanted to do the show as an experiment for my totes. I've brought both pillows and totes to my last three shows. Pillows are doing great but no one looks at the totes. (I've only sold 3 over all.) I want to do a show where I ONLY bring totes and see if --
       a) pillows are overshadowing the totes & that is why no one is paying attention to my tote display rack;
       b) two different products are too much for my booth and shoppers only have time to browse through one thing or
       c) my totes just suck and that's why no one is buying them. #sadface
I talked it over with Wes (who has been promoted to Operations Manager of RagsReborn) and he agrees it's a good plan. If this show bombs, I'll know totes aren't for me and I can discontinue production. Gotta find out one way or another, right?

But as I actually gather information and prepare to apply, I'm starting to have second thoughts about being a vendor at The PC West Fest. I posted on the two Facebook vendor groups I'm a part of and it doesn't look promising in the sales department. But, all the comments do mention how great the event coordinators were. Sales were dismal but the event itself was supposedly organized and advertised well, which I think is also super important.

It's the luckiest day of the year and that was all feedback from the spring show. The fall show in November could be different. So, I'm gonna go with my initial gut instinct and apply. Wish me well!

Now, on to the next topic of this blog... The Summer Show.

I will say now that I will not be participating in this show again. I actually did pretty well at the show. I sold about as much as I have been selling at shows (Yay for consistency!) and I even made my booth fee back. But, the show was crazy unorganized. It was very stressful and So.Ridiculously.Unorganized. Before you think poorly of the show, I will list three pros (followed by three cons).

Pros of The Summer Show:
1. I sold pillows and made money! Obviously that is a good thing \(^.^)/ The booth rent was only $45 so it was easy to recuperate that fee. After Indie Trunk Show, I made a new rule that I'm only participating in shows that have booth rent of $50 or less. That way, I'm almost certain I'll come out breaking even. And maybe even make a profit. Cha-ching!!

2. It was a small show. I don't want to sound cocky but my booth display & products were better than a lot of the other vendors there. That's not to say I blew my neighbors out of the water but I did do better than some of them.

I didn't feel completely out of place at The Summer Show. At last, I wasn't the newbie! I'll definitely grow and become more professional in the future (I do plan on returning to Indie Trunk Show in a year or two) but I felt like doing a smaller show really boosted my confidence. My booth looked good and I was keeping up with my neighbors in terms of traffic flow and maybe even surpassing them in sales. It felt good being among my peers.

3. I really liked the hours of the show. It was 9 a.m to 4 p.m. It didn't start too early and it didn't end too late. Wes and I got there around 8 a.m  and started setting up. My mom brought us lunch around 1 p.m and the rest of the day flew by. We were cleaned up, pack & unpacked and at home by 5:30 p.m. Short and sweet day.

Cons of The Summer Show:

1. Sales weren't as great as they could be. I felt like this was a universal complaint among the vendors there. I was happy with my sales but there's always room for improvement. I heard talk all day that sales were worse than previous years. There was overall dissent with vendor performance.

I think this is because the show was scheduled for the week after tax-free weekend (Wes actually deduced this for me). Everyone was broke! The event coordinators should have considered this when they were scheduling the date. Also, August is not a good month for shows because everyone is drained financially from summer vacations and family getaways. Plus, after spending hundreds of dollars for back-to-school, a $10 pillow, $5 piece of fudge or $20 piece if jewelry just seems like too much.

2. "Handmade" crafters were outnumbered by boutique retail and direct sale vendors. I've heard this is common so I won't harp too much on it. But I did receive two complaints from friends about this. One friend came early in hopes of good shopping and said she was surprised how little craft items there were; it was labeled as a "craft show" after all. A woman from my book club came later in the afternoon and flat out said she was disappointed with the show because it had no good handmade items (although she went on to say my pillows were nice).

3. Now for my last and biggest complaint. THIS SHOW WAS COMPLETELY UNORGANIZED!! I felt like the event coordinators did zero research before planning this show. It was a mess and it was very stressful. This was the 4th annual show so I would think all the kinks would be worked out but I would be wrong. The show organizers were young and their inexperience showed; they were also not very nice and even less helpful. Throughout the day, the vendor information table was manned by high schoolers who were both rude and unknowledgeable.

       A) there was very little advertising or social media presence leading up to the show.
       B) there was absolutely no traffic control in the parking lot for loading or unloading. I'm not saying there should have been a live person directing traffic but a few orange cones would have been nice. There were cars permanently parked on the curb even when they weren't loading/unloading. There were trailers parked every which way. Wes and I almost got hit by cars (not even exaggerating) while we were trying to load/unload.
       C) I requested electricity on my vendor application. I turned in my application way in advance (probably 3-4 months in advance) so I could guarantee myself an electrical outlet. I get to vendor set up day and guess what? I am nowhere near an outlet. My vendor paperwork is marked "No electricity." I went to talk to the staff about this and they just shrugged it off. I had to (the staff was not going to brainstorm with me) come up with ideas to get myself electricity.

       D) the layout of the show was absolute madness. The show was in a gymnasium type community center. The event coordinators wanted money, money, money so they took as many booth applications as possible. There was entirely too many booths. There was barely any room to walk through the aisles. Setting up was a nightmare. My booth was by the entry way and I was getting bumped into and stepped on. There were vendors smushed up against doors and lined up along both sides of a narrow hallway.   

       I had two friends complain to me that it was messy and overwhelming. One friend told me she just left after 10 minutes because it was too unorganized to shop. My other friend brought her young daughter in an umbrella stroller and said she couldn't maneuver the stroller around the booths or in the aisles because everything was so packed.

So there's my experience at The Summer Show. I guess I value my overall vendor satisfaction over sales made. I had a much better time at Indie Trunk Show and my sales tanked. It's hard to find a good balance of both, I suppose. I have at least 2 other shows lined up so we'll see how those go.