Weather was great. Big crowds, they came out for this one.  Show is over-priced for vendors.  A lot of people did Manteca's Street Faire, but I would stay away from that one.  They added more booths (again) this year in Clovis.  We were located all the way at the end of Section J here in Clovis, but that wasn't too bad.  We will not be returning in September for Clovisfest, as the cost of doing shows down here is getting pretty high and is not worth it for us.  Motel for 2 nights=$130 (Motel 6); gas prices too high.

Even though there was a large crowd, which was down from the year before, they were mostly walking around and spending little.  I guess they have upwards of 100,000 people attending and that might be believeable most years.  I tend to think that Saturday is Opening Day of the show year for vendors.  Just like baseball.  Everybody enthusiastic and excited because the rains have finally ended and a lot of them are out of their houses for the first time in quite awhile.   I refer to the first three months of the year as being 'spring training' and we even start the year in Arizona.

We have had good year's here in Clovis but with the economy going sour, this is a tough show to make money and show much of a profit.   They do not allow Friday set-ups and give you staggered  times on Saturday morning.  Mine would be something like 6:00 or thereabouts but by the time we would get there, most of the vendors were setting up.  There were a couple times that I brought my motor home and arrived at 5:00 with nobody there and that was great and we were able to sleep in the motor home at night in a lot a couple blocks away.  However, packing up at the end of Sunday was a mess, so we ended that idea.

 One year I arrived there a little later because of dense fog on Highway 99 and I found my space.   These spaces were 10x10 right down to the inch and many vendors had expanded their 'territory' by a couple inches and I found that my space had dwindled down to about 5 feet across.  Wow.  I was shocked and was going to try to get a different space.  However, a couple of the other vendors came forward and they had the other vendors move their canopies closer to one another and before long, I had my 10x10 space AND IT WAS TIGHT!!!  

This year, I was located next to a lady selling hats and she was a pain in the butt.  All day long she was yelling to the people passing by.  "Need a hat...got a head... get your hats over here'.  Wow imagine hearing that 200 times throughout the day.  On the other side we had a guy selling GIGANTIC metal wind chimes which rang out loudly the entire weekend, competing with the lady's yelling.  Whoa.  But his wind chimes were beautiful and he did quite well.

The Hat Lady next door asked to borrow our masking tape on Saturday and we gave it to her.  An hour later, I asked her for it and she couldn't find it.  We really needed it to tape our signs, prices, etc. up.  She looked for it, attended to a customer and after that I asked her again.  She looked for it again and could not find it and we ended up without it until Sunday when she found it around noontime beneath a stack of hats.  Later that day, she asked me if I had a pair of scissors.  What do you think I told her?  NO.