Please click here to read last year's review on the event.  Visit the forum.  Sign up for newsletter.   Be sure to scroll all the way down to The Lighter Side - a not-so-serious look at this week's festival.

THE REVIEW
There were a total of 74 vendors this year and I am certain that we are down a substantial number from last year which could be attributed to the Pittsburg Seafood Festival.  There were a very large number of booths related to dogs along with a couple animal petting areas, which signals a decline in the overall quality of this event.  I am pretty certain that the local Chamber of Commerce is behind that and when you see those kind of booths popping up all over the place along with so many NP's you can call it 'bye-bye Balboni' and a major overhaul is needed. We have had issues with the weather over the years but this was the first time we ever had rain which occurred during the first few hours of the show and the last hour or so of Sunday.  Definitely affected sales as did the opening week of football season.  The crowd was middle-to-lower-middle class and that is definitely not a big spending bunch of people.  Jewelry and clothing took the biggest hits and their sales were down phenominally.  Basically poor sales for everybody and if I said that most vendors were down 30 percent this year, that might be considered an under-estimate.  Please read the following for the complete story.  

This yearly event is being held in the small town of Castro Valley, located approx 15 miles south east of Oakland.  For a good number of years, it was held in the Village Plaza, a complex of around 25 businesses frequented by the locals.  Three years ago, they took it to the streets, having the festival on Castro Valley Blvd.  I recall many years ago....early 70's and before, this was a popular cruising area as the teens took to the streets in their souped up and beat up junkies and 56 Chevy's and drove up and down the Boulevard, quite similar to what you saw in American Graffiti.  I recall being in the service back in '72 and my friends and I cruised up and down on a number of occasions.  The scenes  of people parked in lots sitting on their hoods were reminiscent of what you saw in that famous movie co-starring Ronnie Opie Howard.  Anyhow, the cruising ended quite a long time ago.....  I think.  I lived in New Jersey back in the 60's and it was the thing to do.

The show is promoted by Festival Productions (Jeff & Jerry Cambra) along with other local organizations and has been going on for a long time.  I believe this is probably our 8th year here.  I recall that we did the Atwater Fall Festival on the weekend following 9-11 and the year's after I we did Castro Valley during the second weekend of September.

WEATHER FORECAST.  I decided to check the weather forecast on Thursday for this weekend and was shocked to see that they were predicting showers for Monday (Weather.com).  I checked Accuweather.com and they were showing showers for Sunday evening.

Saturday, Sep 12

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.  Preparing to leave to set up for the show and I heard some thunder and lightning.  This was right after checking the weather forecast which showed no rain in sight.  After a few minutes, I stepped outside and it was raining.  Wow.  We have some really freaky weather going around.

ARRIVED AT THE FESTIVAL around 5:20am and pulled up alongside my space.  Had some sprinkles along the way there, but now we were being treated to a show of lightning and thunder as we began setting up our canopies.  After we had unloaded about 10 bags onto he curb, I felt a few sprinkles.  We hurried up and set up a canopy and placed the things that we had just taken out in the center area to keep them dry.  Unloaded the other canopy and set that up also.  Nothing much as far as rain for the next couple hours.  However, we did have occasional lightning and thunder.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS.  We were pretty much all set up by 9:30 and ready to greet our customers.  However, missing one thing....the customers.  It took awhile for them to begin arriving, as few dared venture out in this kind of threatening weather. 

                


  

VENDORS.  A great many of the vendors from last year had noticeably disappeared   All the vendors around us were different.  Two empty spaces diagonally across from us.  Two new vendors in front of us and a new jewelry vendor next to us, REPLACING the Pallen School of Martial Arts, which had plagued our sales for the past 3 years they were located next to us.  I was so relieved to see them gone (located on other aisle).  Not a good shot, but you can see how these people like to come to the middle of the aisle and block people passing by.  STILL, no respect.

PALLEN SCHOOL OF MARTIAL ARTS. I was so thankful that these kids were not located next to us this year.  We have had them next door for 3 years and every year they got worse with their antics which affected my sales.  They had continually gone out in the middle of the aisle trying to drag 'potential' students (or whatever the hell you wanted to call them) into their booth.  Read last years review to see or go to Yelp and enter 'Pallen school of martial arts, castro valley review) and read what I have said about them.  This year, they were in an aisle with a much smaller area for people to pass by.  While I was walking around, I saw their kids block half the aisle doing their 'things.'  Not my problem anymore.  Other non-profits were located all around them.




A lady selling hats was next to us across the driveway and a new vendor in front of her.  Seemingly, a great many of previous year's vendors must have headed up to the Pittsburg Seafood Festival, which is held on the same weekend this year.

THERE WERE NOTICEABLE CHANGES throughout the event and the 'atmosphere' of this one-time excellent festival is showing a different climate.  First and foremost were the food vendors, who were previously situated in the Safeway parking lot.  They were now in the street, replacing a number of vendors from past year's.  There looks like there are quite a larger number of non-profits this year and their appearance is quite noticeable.  They are all over the place and I think they encompass a majority of the total number of booths. 

At approximately 9:30 on Saturday morning, I looked over to the booth diagonally from us and to my amazement, I saw around 14-16 individuals going through Tai-chi motions in front of their booth and the one next door, in two rows of 7-8 people each.  Oh gosh, I thought to myself.  We had just gotten rid of one our worst neighbors ever and now this?  Can you imagine people doing this when there is a huge crowd walking by?  However, this was the only time I saw them out there and that was okay.  Just an early morning stretch, etc.   I certainly wasn't ready to go through people doing this all day long there.

CASTRO VALLEY GOING TO THE DOGS.  I saw numerous booths related to dogs and associated products and services.  All kinds of dog stuff mixed in with the regular vendors.  I just don't think this is the right time and/or place for this. Not a dog show. Sure it's nice for these dog-related things to be part of this festival, but you are making the thing look like a 3-ring circus.  I guess if that's what the Chamber wants to do to this show, they can do it, but by looking around you can see this show going to the dogs actually.  There was an incredibly large number  of non-profits located in the eastern areas of the show and there are several other's intermingled amongst the other vendors.  Also, there are a number of organizations that have booths and their people are standing out in the middle of the aisle passing out their literature. That's a no-no.  Also, festivals need to  keep the vendor's separate from the NP's.  In my opinion, the vendors are having a tough time already with sales nowadays, and you have more continuity if you place the NP's elsewhere.  We even have an animal petting area there.  Come on now. What are you trying to do with this event?  You don't need all this animal stuff.  You keep that up and you will lose the rest of the vendors.  Pittsburg WILL love them (CofC) for that.  I am certain that other vendors don't want all that stuff around them.  I don't fault the promoter's of this event for this, as it is quite obvious that the Chamber is dictating what they want in this show and I just think that they are going the wrong way.  NOTE:  Festival Productions (Jeff, Jerry Cambra & co.) are the cream of the crop as far as promoter's of events go and vendors are treated with a very high level of dignity and respect.  Other promoter's:  take heed, please.  Get you're clipboard out and follow them around.  Don't be scared or ashamed to take notes.  Promoter's pretty much have their hands tied when dealing with the beaurocracies involved with the events.

BARNDON AND BALLY THREE-RING DOG FESTIVAL.  Come on down to Castro Valley's First Annual Dog related festival.  Replaces the Castro Valley Fall Festival, which ran SUCCESSFULLY for many, many years.  You can now adopt-a-mutt for only $250 per month.  Rent a dog to walk with you around the event to keep you company.  Or you can get a dog big enough to ride.  Animal petting zoo also.  Exciting dog races on Sunday afternoon at 1:00pm in the Lucky's parking lot.  As an added attractions, dogs will attempt to jump over 13 starving vendors laying side by side.  This is all free, people.  That's what the people truly like....freebies.




DA FOOD.  Went over and got an Italian Sausage.  Not bad.  Same person I bought from last year.  Very good.  I paid $6.00 for a humongous Italian Sausage sandwich with Peppers and Onions.  Maybe that's the largest Italian I have ever seen. Wish I had my camera there.  Looked good. This compares to Lockeford Sausages, where you get a huge Brat for $5.00.  I think the sausage was pretty darn good and I was not disapointed.  I recommend it highly.  They have a number of other sausages there and I'll bet they are good also.  The P&O were a bit chunky and need to be sliced thinner and you need to have more on the sausage.  You do that, It'd be the best you could ever have.  My Best?  Fenway Pock (Park) baby.  A little smaller, but lots of onions and peppers.  The smell draws you over to them and if you are hungry, you can't resist.  The atmosphere.  The crowd.  The excitement of Red Sox baseball....  it's all part of it.

There was a booth with Philly Cheesesteaks, but I didn't get any this time.  There is a Cheesesteak Shop over in the village shops, but I passed on it this time. There was a couple, perhaps in their 30's, walking past my booth and I heard them mention something that didn't sound too appetizing about the place and I almost jumped out of my booth and asked them 'where do you get your cheesesteaks from?'   I've tried a number of places around the Bay Area and they can not come close to Pudge's back in Blue Bell, PA. or even the best places in Philly. 

               

  

  
 
A GREEK FESTIVAL.  Was doing my walk-about at the Fall Festival and was leaving the food area.  There was a lady handing out flyers advertising a Geek Festival....whoops..... I'm sorry, a Greek Festival.  My friend took one from the lady.  I didn't.  As we walked away, I asked him to let me read it and it was for a show they were having someplace in C.V.  I saw mention of the word 'vendors.'  Hey, that's me, I thought to myself.  The festival was being held on the first weekend of October and I needed a local event.  I walked back over to the lady and asked her about the show's vendors.  "Yah, it's a nice event and we are expecting a lot of people.  We are having a COUPLE VENDORS this year."  (Oh wow....you're going to have a couple vendors...I hope that's not too many.  I hate shows where they have too many vendors)   I looked at her, batting my eyes not believing what I had just heard.  This sounds like a very interesting story coming up.  "Yah.  We are going to try to have a couple vendors at our show to try it out. What do you sell?"   I then told her what we sold, of course.  "How much are spaces?"  Make sure you are sitting down when I tell you.  Take a deep breath...exhale.  Here goes...  "Five hundred dollahs."  No further questions were necessary.  Just two words were all I needed to say.  "GOOD BYE."   Wow, they are having a festival and are 'experimenting' with a thing called 'vendors' AND they are charging $500 for a space.  Sorry, Petrovagopulous, you are not experimenting we me for $500.  If you PAID ME $600 to come to your show, then I would take it under consideration at my next board meeting.

That's a joke, right.  Where's the cameras?  You can't be serious.  Come on now.  

Sunday, September 13.  Overcast throughout the day.  Crowds were late in arriving and things picked up around 1:00. My sales were lower at that time, then they were yesterday when we had morning showers.  I talked to a number of other vendors and the same was happening to them.   I had spurts of sales throughout the afternoon.  I would tend to believe that a lot of the guys were staying home watching football, as the season had just opened this week, which was one week later than last year.

It's Mimosa time at the Castro Valley Fall Festival.  On Sunday at each of their festivals, they bring around their container of Mimosa and we all get a cup full of orange juice and champagne.  Delicious.




Got a Denver Omelet from Doug's Place next to Lucky's.  It was pretty good and probably one of the best one's I have ever eaten.  I highly recommend this place.  **** 1/2.



NERDY KIDS AND INTELLIGENT QUESTIONS.  I was pretty impressed by the scrutiny and intelligence of a number of teenagers looking at certain items.  They were asking a number of very good questions in attempting to make a determination of whether to buy a specific product I am selling.

At approximately 9:30 on Saturday morning, I looked over to the booth diagonally from us and to my amazement, I saw around 14-16 individuals going through Tai-chi motions in front of their booth and the one next door, in two rows of 7-8 people each.  Oh gosh, I thought to myself.  We had just gotten rid of one our worst neighbors ever and now this?  Can you imagine people doing this when there is a huge crowd walking by?  However, this was the only time I saw them out there and that was okay.  Just an early morning stretch, etc.   I certainly wasn't ready to go through people doing this all day long there. UPDATE:  This was the only time it occured.  Just getting in tune with the world.

PLEASE DON'T TAKE PICTURES.  In every show, I always catch at least one person attempting to take photos of our merchandise.  I sell a number of items that they try to use as props in their photos.  I sell these Chinese 'coolie' hats which are somewhat unique and really different in appearance than what you normally see.  I had a guy put one on yesterday while I was sitting about 5 feet in back of my booth.  I saw the lady 'getting in position' to snap a photo and I began to stand up and walk over just as she was raising her camera.  "I'm sorry, but no pictures."  She quickly lowered the camera and got upset. "You can buy the hat and take all the pictures you want later."  Then the lady angrily grumbles "Oh, I was going to buy the hat, but now I am not."  I looked at her .... oh, I'm so sorry...please buy my hat... I beg for forgiveness...please....I'm sorry...   "Yeah, right.  You buy the hat and you can take all the pictures that you want."

There were periods throughout the day when it looked like the sun was going to break through.  However, I noticed that there were darker clouds rolling in around 2:00 and it occurred to me that we could quite conceivably get some rain.  Wow.  Rain in September (again)? 

Around 3:30 there was a lady in my booth making a purchase and she mentioned that there was rain in the forecast.  I asked her 'when' and she said she didn't know.  Oh gosh, that's all I needed.  I didn't want to believe her.  Around 4:45, I heard somebody mention those much over used magic words 'liquid sunshine' and I looked over and didn't see any rain.  However, a few minutes later I heard some droplets on top of our canopy and then looked up the sky and saw that there were loads of dark clouds all around us.  At that point, my son and I raced outside and began taking away our things which were going to get wet.  Rain began falling harder, disbursing much of the crowd and that was the end of the show for us and many others.  We continued packing our stuff.  Awhile after I had much of our stuff put away (and still sprinkling) a lady comes over to me and looks at some of our things and comments that 'you're losing sales because people are walking around.'  "Yes, I know that, but I don't want to get my things ruined."  They just don't really understand it.  If you are a vendor and you have to pack up and load your things into your vehicle during a rainstorm, it is quite difficult.

WHEN YOU SEE ALL THESE NON-PROFITS don't you get the feeling that this is a free giveaway kind of thing?  Throw in the 6 or 7 booths related to dog activities and you have something that looks like a mess.  Know what I mean?  Your walking around the booths and you come to some of these and for some reason, you are given the impression that is where the show ends.  Or maybe you see a bunch of people standing in the middle of the aisle holding the leashes of some of the dogs they have on display. "Oh wow...so cute...blah blah blah."  No offense, but do you really want to come across this when you are sorting through the (not so many) vendor booths looking for a nice ring or bracelet or a new purse (not knock-offs).  I find things like this disrupting and affects the continuity of the event.  An animal petting area right in the middle of the vendor booths is just a bit beyond me.  In the center of the event, you have a baseball throwing game?  This has to be the Chamber of Commerce's doing.

THE LIGHTER SIDE
A not-so-serious way to look at this week's festival and not to be taken seriously.


  BRING YOUR DOG OVER TO GRETCHEN MALKOWSKI'S DOG WASH where you can get your dog washed for free from head to toe, nose to butt.  Get a thorough cleansing with her deep-cleaning K-nine grime and slime remover.  She is selling her amazing cleanser  at $23.99 for a 25-gallon container.  Works great.  Warning:  Do not use near cigarettes, cell phones or spark inducing gadgets as it may cause your dog to.... well, kind of explode. 



TV TONIGHT.  Charlie Wettaone will appear on KTVQ at 10:30pm to explain how he botched up today's weather report.  He is expected to apologize for giving mis-information to the vendors and other people affected by his frequent bogus predictions.  Call the studio for his head!!!  Conspiracy!!!!!  No apologies.





UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTONE.  Now you can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in weather forecasting.  Anyone can be taught.  Learn in your spare time with our mail order course. Many of our students now employed on TV stations, airports, websites, etc. Please call 1-800-HOT-HELL. 

ANOTHER MILLION DOLLAR IDEA.  My back was just itching really bad.  I reached over and grabbed my great back-scratcher..... a huge bear-claw (on a foot and half long stick) with huge fingernails (or claw-nails) and ran it up and down my back. Oh man, that thing can reach anywhere on your back.  What a relief... you know what I mean.  I had bought this thing for $12.95 in Alaska 6 years ago and it is great.  Could sell shit like this  Make the scratcher things from all different animals.  Hell, with all these dog-lovers out there, you could make some with doggie paws on them.  (Animal activist Disclaimer:  These are faux claws.  No animals would be harmed in any way during the making of these claws.  These are fabricated from natural materials known to man.)  Matter of fact, you could make them with little noise things inside them that sound like that particular animal as you move it up and down your back..   i.e. dog, cat, lion, woman....whoa.  Can you imagine 15 people standing in a BART train all pulling out their animal back scratchers and rubbing their backs at the same time with those things.  Okay...1..2..3..  everybody scratch your back.  Hey dude, where'd ya get that thing at?  Oh wow.  I picked it up at the First Annual Castro Valley Dog Extravaganza.  Cool man.  Could gather up 50,000 people and go into the Guiness Book of Records for 'most people scratching their back at the same time.'  You could even get football player (and former football player, convict, etc.) Michael Vick to endorse some of these. "Yah, I've been using these things for years.  Works great on your back and other bodily parts.  Now only $12.95.  For a limited time, we are offering two of the dog-scratchers for the low, low price of $19.95.  Hurry up and order.  Call 1-800-BIG-ITCH



UPDATE.  Did a search and found something called the 'Kodiak Back Scratcher' which is similar to what I have.  I found scratchers with plastic 'heads' of various animals on one end and scratcher things on the other.  You could put the heads on one end also, but use simulated claws from that specific animal.  I recall seeing alligator back scratchers in the past.