May 2-3. Ceres, CA.
This event is spread along 5 blocks in the community of Ceres, located
just off Highway 99, 7 miles south of Modesto.
We have a high probability of rain on Saturday. Weather.com says
rain; Accuweather.com says possible showers. I'll take that
'possible.' Over the years we have experienced rain on
several occasions and high temperatures approaching 100 degrees.
Our booth is located beneath a large tree, providing us with some shade.
We always seem to catch the afternoon sun shining directly at us.
We have been doing this show since 1994 and it is our longest running
event. The Chamber of Commerce does a great job putting on the
show and are extremely helpful during setup on Saturday morning as they
guide you to your location with their walkie-talkies. Many other
Chamber of Commerces and promoters need to bring their clipboards and take notes on
how it's done.
There are numerous food booths there run by local non-profit
organizations. Not that great of a selection and I would love to
see a Kettle Korn or Philly Cheesesteak there. However, this is an
excellent way for these groups to earn money for their causes and I
support them and I hope everybody else does. Without
festivals like this it would be more difficult for these organizations
to raise money and your kids would be 'out on the streets.' Please
support the causes. (my cause too!!)
Please check out my review from
last year's event. Also, be sure to read
Your Daily
Dose, which is a daily accounting of things going on. I
provide a great many tidbits of info. Have you seen the paper issue of
Craftmaster's News. Isn't that a lovely picture on the front
cover? I haven't seen this issue yet, but I have heard that my
shot of Mt. Shasta is on the cover along with my name, etc. Can't
wait to see it. If you are a subscriber to FNO (Festivals Network
Online) you will be getting their 'newsletter' later on this week.
Please look for the article that I wrote about Starving Vendors.
Here's some pictures of our booth
I have just created a forum where we can talk about anything regarding
the shows, promoters, problems, food, etc. Not much on it yet, but
I am looking forward to hearing your comments and hopefully, it will
grow.
Starving Vendors Forum
Saturday, May 2
WEATHER REPORT. I guess that all of us are most concerned about
the weather this weekend, as a huge storm has come rolling into
California. I checked
Accuweather.com and they are not showing rain during the day.
Rain tonight. I'm scared to check weather.com. For tomorrow,
we could have a couple showers. Let's hope for decent weather.
We arrived there around 6:30AM and checked in. We were told that
we have the same space, so we proceeded over there and began setting up.
It was a bit cloudy and occasionally I would feel a raindrop. It
took us approx 3 hours to set up.
BREAKFAST. Around 7:30 a guy came around selling breakfasts from
an organization which happened to be cooking breakasts. It was
rather expensive, costing $7.00. My wife and I decided to share
one. In this meal, we were served four dollar-sized pancakes, two
sausages and some scrambled eggs and a small container with 4 tiny
microscopic sliced peaches. The micro-pancakes were okay, but they
were so small. The mini-sausages were okay, but...... I'm
used to those big, gigantic, huge pancakes, ya know? Needless to
say, this was not a good deal for $7.00. Sorry. I'm
all for raising money for your organization, but this is ridiculous.
I want to say something nice, but this was a total ripoff. I am so
happy that we didn't buy two breakfasts.
The Chamber of Commerce really runs a good event here. They are
very friendly and courteous toward the vendors and that goes a long way.
THE TREE. We have been in this same spot for about 7-8 years and
we were surprised to see that the huge tree behind our booth is gone.
It provided nice shade for us during those years that temperatures were
in the high 90's. I was told that 'the city' had it taken down.
THE FOOD. All the food is made and sold by non-profit
organizations. Not really that much of a choice beside hot dogs,
hot dogs, hot dogs, hamburgs, bratwurst, tri-tips, pizza, hot dogs and
tacos. I had a Bratwurst and it was pretty decent. Had it
with 'the works' - sauerkraut and peppers. Good price $4.00. Watch out
Lockeford. (sausages), you've got competition. There was a Kettle
Korn booth there and they were kicking butt. I walked by them a
couple times and they had lines at least 12 deep.
VENDORS. I counted the number of vendors - 58. This does not
include the non-profits and food booths. I think that there are
perhaps a dozen fewer vendors than last year. The cost of spaces
is a bit on the high side - $300. I would place a value of between
$225-$250 as being the monetary value of vendor spaces taking into
account the total number of booths, crowd count, etc. If
there were more booths, then the value would be substantially less of
course. So, the reason for the high MVVS is that there are a small
number of booths with fairly large crowds resulting in higher potential
income for vendors.
SUGGESTION. They are losing vendors and we have two reasons.
Of course, the economy is cutting into sales. However, we all can
not afford the booth fees, which need to be lowered next year in order
to attract more vendors.
Occasionally I would stand in the middle of the street
to take a look at the 'crowds' and watch my booth. I could not
believe that I was hit in the head twice with umbrellas and had several
other close calls. So, watch out for those umbrellas people.
Please pay attention when you are walking with them. I was walking
down the food aisle and a kid from one of the non-profits ran out in
front of me to hand some literature to two young ladies. He turned
around quickly and almost knocked me over. Here's some shots
of our booth.
Sunday, May 3
WEATHER FORECAST. I looked at Accuweather.com and we are just showing
'cloudy' throughout the day with temps going up in the lower 70's during
PM. No rain, but I am not sure about that.
Weather.com is saying 'Showers in the Vicinity.' You know what
that means. So, what do we call that? Mostly dry followed by
partially wet.
It was raining a little when we left Hayward and rained
off and on along Highways 580. It stopped raining by the time we
got to Highway 205 and as we turned south on Highway 99, I could see
that there was some pretty darn ugly weather in the Modesto-Ceres area.
When we arrived at Street Fair at 8:45, it was raining so we just stayed
in our van until 9:50 when the rain finally ended. We quickly
opened up and the weather was okay throughout the day. No more
rain. Crowds were much smaller today than yesterday and less than
Sunday last year.
BAD NEIGHBOR AWARD goes to this Chiropractic booth next door. They
were constantly doing business out in the middle of the aisle and
blocking traffic as people had to skirt around them. You know I
walked around the show and observed a number of people passing out
literature in the middle of the aisle and I observed a lot of people who
get completely turned off by this. During the afternoon, they
actually had a couple chairs in my open space alongside my canopy.
Earlier in the day I saw one of them place a can of soda on the curb
beside the back of their booth. I saw a lady trip over the
can and it rolled over into my booth. They did not pick it up.
They could care less. I stepped over and pushed the two chairs
back into their space and walked over and kicked the can about ten feet
into their space. Two of them just stood there watching me.
I didn't say anything. Do you see that
lady standing out in front of her booth and the people
are avoiding her by going around. This kind of crap hurts our
sales.
If I were a promoter, I would take a lot of these vendors that do
nothing but solicit...chiropractors, Mary Kaye (next
photo--in the middle of the street soliciting), etc., and stick them all
on a #($#*$ing side street by themselves a couple blocks away and
let them run all over themselves
.
FOOD. Went over and picked up a tri-tip sandwich for $5.00, which
my wife and I shared. It was pretty good. However, I just
can not see how it was any different than a plain old roast beef
sandwich. Check out 'food alley' All non-profits but
no lines of people. Slow for everybody. Look at the clouds
in the background. Ugleeeeee!!!
.
Sales were down drastically today and it seemed like the people could
care less. They just weren't buying. I talked to a number of
vendors and they did poorly also. People, get ready for the long
haul. This is going to take some time. Even our best shows
are down 40-70 percent. Usually during the early afternoon, the
Chamber of Commerce comes around and drops off their survey for us to
fill out. Did not see hide nor hair of them. I guess they
pretty well know this show was poor. I'll return next year,
but....
The shot on lower left was taken around
11:30AM. Root Farms Fruit and Nuts on the end. Have
seen them all over the place, including Arizona. They have some
good stuff. Do you see a lot of people?
There are more people on
the golf carts then people on the street, huh?
