UPDATE: November 16, 2009. A number of
vendor's told me that the event was bad and attendance
was not as expected on a weekend when the weather was
pretty decent for this time in November. Three
buildings were packed full of vendors and sales were
poor for them. No matter what, this show will
never make it off the ground. As you will read
below about a number of vendors not being contacted for
many weeks that they were not being allowed to be in the
event, I am asking for a vendor boycott of this event in
2010. I do not like being treated like that and it
could happen to you. I am actually glad that I
didn't do the event because I would have perhaps not
made the booth fee. Think about it. They
throw your papers in the corner and forget about you
unless you are chosen by them to participate.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS SHOW!!! VENDOR WARNING.
My review for 2008 follows below. I had sent in my
application in September for the 2009 event. Since
I had not received a contract from them, I emailed them
and did not receive a response. I called and spoke
to a lady last week and was told that I would get a call
back. No phone call. Time is getting late.
I called them up on Monday and I was told by Wendy that
they had not received pictures from me. I agreed
to send them right in. However, why didn't you let
me know before? I had been doing it for a number
of years and we struggled through two very poor weekends
with them last year. Today, Thursday, Oct 22, I
received a letter from them:
We have received your application for the 2009 Fall
Faire and appreciate your interest in our Faire.
We regret to inform you that at this time we will not be
contracting your services. Unfortunately, we feel
that tour product(s) are not suitable in nature for this
event.
I am not really too pleased in waiting this long for a
response. You could have called me before (after I
called you) or you could have timely answered my email.
But you didn't. I don't appreciate the way you are
handling vendors. I have spoken to other
vendors who have not been responded to. So, tell
me, when the hell are you going to let these people
know.
In all actuality, they have held this show spread over
two weekends in November for 3 days each. The
second weekend totally sucks and virtually all the
vendors lost money and wasted time sitting around for
hours and hours with nobody in sight. Especially
when the weather was decent in 2008.
Sales were pretty bad that first weekend also and I can
not see any difference this year. This event is
being held in a very distraught area when money is
scarce. I expect this event to be worse than ever.
If you aren't located in the first building, than you
are totally screwed. That is where they get the
most foot traffic. There are two other buildings;
the middle gets less traffic and you can kiss your ass
if you are in the last building because you are going to
get very little foot traffic. Believe me.
Now you can read the review from last year.
The event will be held only over one weekend on November
14-15.
Held at the Contra Costa County Fairgrounds,
1210 W. 10th Street in Antioch, CA
Set up began on Thursday 1:00PM. We arrived there around 1:45 and
saw quite a number of vehicles there already. We got there early to
avoid the rush, since we wanted to get close to an entrance and that
worked out pretty good.
We checked in and then found out (thankfully) that our space (A-28)
was located in the first building We had done this event
last year and were located outside. It's easier to set up outside,
of course. Hwever, we did experience some rain and decided to pay a
little extra and have our booth inside the building, out of the
weather. We positioned the van in front of the entrance and
hand-trucked all our equipment and merchandise inside. It wasn't
easy and it was not done quickly.
On Friday, the weather was absolutely
beautiful. You couldn't ask for a better November day. No rain.
Sun. Temps in the 70's.
We arrived there around 8:00 and completed
setting up and we were ready for business at 9:45. The show started
at 10:00 and finished at 4:00. Ready for business? What business?
Crowds were small and sales were slow for everybody. Just have to
go with the flow. I never like Friday shows as I have never had good
sales on a Friday (except for Tyson Wells Sell-a-Rama and county
fairs). Three day shows usually have slow Fridays because most of
the crowd is at work....and you probably get people who have no jobs
and little money. Of course, no kids. You can expect more of a
family type crowd on Saturday and on Sunday, I would think that you
get more women strolling around the booths after the
football-watching husbands kick the wives out of the house.
On Saturday, it was somewhat cloudy most of the
day and the rains had held off until we closed up and left at 5:00.
The people really came out for this event. The promoters did a
great job in getting the word out. However, our sales were still
down and the other vendors had the same problem. Nothing we can go
about that, just ride things out. They did a magnificent job
getting the people here, but they were just holding onto their money
during these rough times. Some vendors did rather decently. Too
much jewelry, as our necklace sales were down.
On Sunday, the weather was pretty decent.
Cloudy and temps in the high 60's. As we were heading to Antioch
around 9:15, we were traveling on Highway 242 (from Concord) in the
second lane from the right, I saw the car in front of me swerve to
the left and I took my foot off the gas and touched the brake and
then saw a huge, perhaps 8x8 container sitting in the right hand
side of my lane, taking up a bit more than half of the lane. I
glanced over to my left and saw a truck far enough behind, thank
gosh and I swerved around the box, avoiding it completely. Wow.
Close call. Over the past two years I have encountered a tire
rolling off a car bouncing its way across the highway in front of
me, just north of Castaic on Highway 5. Another time, heading south
on Highway 99, I went around a curved and had to veer off quickly to
the right when I saw a car stopped dead right in front of me. This
year heading to Lake Tahoe, I was heading up Highway 50 and as I
began to pass a truck in front of me and as I made my way around, a
board comes smacking into the side of my van and caroms up and
over. Do I have nine lives?
The crowds were substantially less on Sunday
and sales were pretty bad for anybody. Not too many people made any
money this weekend. However, as I mentioned before, the promoters
did their job. They put on a very good event and that's all you can
do.
The weather was great all weekend long for this
time of year. No rain at all.
We had signed up for a high school in Fremont,
but that is only a one-day show. So, we really weren't in the mood
for tearing down today and hauling the stuff out, which is rather
difficult, we decided to do next weekend here in our space (#28) and
we are hoping that we end up with a better net profit than we would
have at the school.
Week 2 November 14-16
Friday.........SLOW
Saturday.....SLOWER
Sunday...... SLOWEST
A bit slower than Saturday. They had a car
show where people were to look at the cars. Kind of dead in the
other 2 buildings.
