Saturday and Sunday, September 10-11, 2011
I ARRIVED AT THE ANNUAL CASTRO VALLEY FALL FESTIVAL AT APPROXIMATELY 6:10 am on Saturday morning, There was no Friday set-up for this event. This year's festival has been moved from the Boulevard to areas surrounding the County Library and it's parking lots. The event was moved because of ongoing construction on the main thoroughfare running through the town, The event had been held the past 4 years on Castro Valley Blvd. and preceding that, in the Village Shopping Center for many years. Moving the event to another area theoretically makes this a 'brand new event.'
It was still dark as I made my way to my space, located in the parking lot of the library. I took my time emptying my things while waiting for my son to arrive, since he would be helping me unload the van and set up. My wife would not be with me for this event, as she was in the hospital recovering from a hip replacement surgery. My son had parked in the Bart parking lot, which was quite a way from where my booth was located. Since it was dark, I assumed that he could have a slight problem finding me and I became worried. He did arrive afterward and we set up the canopy and grids along with our merchandise.
ALL THE WHILE, I BEGAN TO WORRY that we could encounter poor crowd flow since most of the people entered the event from the Redwood Road side of the show and passed through an entertainment area and the food booths, which happened to be quite spread out and that would make it more difficult to decide upon a particular food. At least, I found it difficult.
THE SHOW WAS QUITE SPREAD OUT and the crowds had to pass through many areas of the show before coming across the Arts and Crafts area where I was located along with 40-50 other vendors. I would imagine that a huge number of the people never made it over to our area. I spoke to a number of vendors who shared my concern and are now hoping that the show would return to the Boulevard. I understand that there was a good number of vendors who kick ass up at he Pittsburg Seafood Festival and that will be on my mind if this show is held in this same area next year. It will be bye-bye Balboni for me. This Festival had been good to us for many of the 10 years or so that we have been doing it, but if I can make double what I did in Castro Valley, I'd head up to Pittsburg. This is a local festival for us and I would hate giving it up.
I WASN'T ABLE TO BROWSE THROUGH THE ENTIRE SHOW, but from what I noticed, there were some wide open spaces along the path of the show, most notably in the food area and I think that there should be better utilization. The food booths were really spread out.
 URINE NATION |
WEEKLY REPORT for Sep 10-11 And now, our weekly report on the canine sector of our population. A good number of dogs brought their owners to the festival. On the whole, they were pretty much behaved. The dogs behaved good also. |
IT WAS PRETTY FAR from my booth to the food area and I had to have somebody watch my booth while I was gone. I was hoping to pick up an Italian, but I saw none. Maybe there was one selling the delicious sausages around, but I didn't spot any. No Philly Cheesesteaks either. Those were my two favorite foods over the years. I found a Fudruckers and both days, I ate their cheeseburgers with fries. No bad. There were some BBQ stands along with other food, but you had to walk great distances to find some other food and I did not have the time. You know, both times I visited the food area, there really weren't long lines at any of the booths and I find that rather strange.
I HAD TO PARK OVER AT THE BART STATION and that was one hell of a long walk to my booth. Something really wrong there. We just should not have to walk so far to our vehicles. I had talked to one of my friend's and he told me of a much better and closer area to park in and this place had a path leading to the booths. Great. That is where I parked on Sunday and it worked out just fine. Hell with the Bart Parking lot.
FOUR OF MY FRIENDS VISITED ME ON SATURDAY and we had a good time. These were my former Postal acquaintances that I had known for many years. Three of them were retired, just like,me. They enjoyed walking around the show, as they spent time listening to the Elvis impersonator and checking out the car show at the Bart Parking Lot.
THE CLACKER HOUR. I've been selling those clacker balls for awhile now. I had a bunch of them sitting on my front table all day Saturday and sold nary a one. Of course, kids would come over and grab them and start playing with them. During the middle of Sunday afternoon, I finally sold a pair. Then all of a sudden, in the next fifteen minutes I sold 4 more pairs, one right after another. I guess that some of these kids would see somebody walking down the street banging them and they would be directed to my booth. Amazing. There's been so many times at shows that something like this has happened. A number of years ago, we dyed puka chips a denim blue color and people went nuts over them once they saw their acquaintance wearing the necklaces that we made. Remember the Zingers? Those oblong shaped things made with magnetic hematite. Very popular. I saw other vendor's selling them, so of course, I jumped on the bandwagon and was able to sell quite a number of them before the fad sizzled out. One of the competitors ended up being Wal-Mart and that was pretty much the end of it. I started off selling them for $14 per pair and by the end of the cycle two years later, prices were dropping to $3.
THERE'S BEEN QUITE A FEW EARTHQUAKES around the country including tremors here in the Bay Area. I had a number of people walk up to me and said that 'this was good earthquake weather.' It was rather overcast, a bit warm. Things were quite slow saleswise for awhile and I began picturing the whole place shaking and a big crater opening up and booths and people being swallowed up. Seriously, that is something think about. Good time to start watching the dogs. Only thing is that they don't give you enough warning since they just run around in circles or whatever ten seconds before it happens. Anyway, no earthquake.
ANOTHER ITEM THAT I SELL ARE these small,,long colorful wooden snakes. Many kids drop by my booth and play with them. One after another. They hold them in front and wiggle them back and forth. Sometimes they sell good and other times they don't. I don't know the magic secret. It's a good traffic stopper because people will congregate around them and this draws passer's-by to my booth. Selling them can be a pain in the butt because everybody is grabbing them and not buying and there is a breakage factor coming into play. There was a 28-year old guy who grabbed one and held it up and the air and said that 'it's limp.' I had to bite my tongue on that one because there were a couple 7-year olds nearby and I had to refrain from making anatomy comments.
THE NOT-SO GALLANT SWORDSMAN stopped by my booth and began looking at the wooden swords I was selling. I had about 15 of them sitting in a bucket in front of my canopy. He was a lower-middle-aged respectable, neatly groomed, clean-clothed, fresh-shaven individual. He stooped down and began inspecting each one of them. One by one. It's normal for somebody to come by and check out two or three, but he went through them all as he stayed there for roughly 10 minutes twisting and turning each sword as he pulled them out from the sheaths. Suddenly he stood up, after looking at every one and then walked away without buying a single one. Wow. There's nothing wrong with them and I could not understand why somebody would spend so much time doing this. I half-expected the guy to pull out those 1/4th inch by 1/8th inch little white stickers and paste them on each sword, saying inspected by number 34, ya know?
THERE WAS A HALF-WAY DECENT crowd there both days. But the festival was just spread out too much and entailed quite a bit of walking. The overall setup wasn't impressive and congested in some areas where passers-by were squeezed into smaller areas to walk through on the street. This event was most definitely not a vendor's delight. I think that we missed much of the foot traffic out there in the library parking lot.