August 14, 2010.  We hadn't done this festival for the past few year's because we had been doing County Fairs up in Oregon.  This event is held yearly at the Filipino Plaza in Stockton.  Merely, it's a small community 'barrio' festival in which residents of the Filipino community here along with other outlying areas attend.  They do not have big-named entertainers appearing here, but rather individuals and groups of local origination.  This is a small show and it is what it is.  You have a small budget and you can only do what you can do.

 

Do you you have anything to say?   comments@starvingvendors.com

 

There were roughly 4-5 food vendors here along with a shaved ice seller.  As for vendors, you can almost count the number on one hand.  I guess we had 6.  There were a couple selling t-shirts, one with a bunch of assorted merchandise, my good friends from Reflections of Asia, which sells imports from the Philippines and of course, myself.

 

WE ARRIVED THERE around 7:10am even though the festival began at 11:00am.  I always get to festivals early, especially for this one because this is Stockton and it can get pretty warm here during the day and it's better to set up when it is cooler, before it gets hot!!  Additionally, there are not a lot of parking spaces around the perimeter of the plaza and I always want to park as close as possible.  This time I found a spot on the street directly behind my space. 

 

IT TOOK US quite awhile to set up.  We really take our time.  No need to rush. We   were ready for business by 10:30.  Very few people walking around at that time and matter of fact, few people there until perhaps 12:15am or so. 

 

THERE WAS A TIME when this show had around 20 vendor's and I would say that it was around 2003, give or take a year.  Kind of hard setting up back then as there was a bit of congestion unloading and loading back up.  This show ran until 8:00pm, so I had to haul my things out on Sunday evening.  The vendors disappeared when they forced them to provide proof of insurance, which most of them did not have and rather deal with the expense of having insurance, these people went elsewhere.  Others left because of declining sales.  We stuck around for several years after that and they ended up having only 3-5 vendors there.  All in all, this show can not support many more than 10 vendors and that is pushing it to the extreme.

 

THE CROWDS WERE LATE IN ARRIVING and there were a lot less people at the event than in past years.  My booth was facing the main row which had other vendor's and the food and beer areas.  All day long I watched and the crowds just did not happen.  A couple food booths had short steady lines by the middle to late part of the afternoon and the vendor's there had tents up in the aisle to provide shade for their customers, which was nice.  It can get pretty darn hot here, but not this year.  Something is wrong with the weather all over the place.  Our weather in Hayward is cockamaney because it's overcast each and every morning well into the afternoon.  On our way to Stockton on Saturday morning it was misty as we left and much more as we passed through Castro Valley.  Never have I seen this before during the month of August.

 

THE FOOD was okay.  I picked up a #1 combo at the food vendor all the way at the end.  This was rice, pancit and chicken adobo and my wife had that and said it was good.  I got three lumpia's for $2.00 and that wasn't bad for 'festival food.'  Decent.  But not as good as my wife's lumpia, which has to be the best in the world, of course.  There were times over the year's that we regretted not going into the food business and selling at shows because people love her lumpia and we would have sold that along with other items.  However, not too sure about how this would go over at the 'regular' non-ethnic festivals.  Anyways, so be it for that idea.  Too old to start something new, not to speak of the energy and enthusiasm which would be necessary and we both are kind of low with that right now.

 

I PICKED UP A HALO-HALO ($4.00) there also and brought it back to my wife and we shared it.  It was good and really hit the spot!!  No nearly as good as the large one we got at Seafood City in Union City.  That thing was humongous and absolutely the best I have ever had.  However, I am not Filipino so I did not grow up eating them.  I'll bet that a lot of Filipino's here recall eating them while growing up in the Philippines.  We Americans (or us white people) have really been missing out on something delicious.  Of course, we do have our delicacies.

 

WE WEREN'T NEAR THE STAGE THIS YEAR, so I really can't comment on their entertainment this year.  Reflections of Asia was playing music near our booth and that was fine for us.  They had on some very soft 60's vocals (American) and my wife enjoyed it, because she listened to that type of music back in the Islands in the 60's when she was growing up and it brought back many memories of her life back then.

 

MY SALES WERE NOT ALL THAT BAD but a huge majority of them were purchases by kids and their parents.  My main top-dollar items were not selling as they continually bought my $8.00 items.  There have been shows recently that I have done that I have noticed a distinct pattern in the cash received.  Early part of the day I would get a lot of $20 bills and then during the afternoon I would receive a bunch of smaller bills.  That meant that people were buying at other booths and spending their chump change at my booth after buying from other's.  However, I had quite a number of $20 bills until around 3:00pm and that means that there were few vendors for them to buy from, so they weren't spending their money.  After 3:00, I received a lot of $5 bills and that came from people who just spent their money on food.  I think?

 

THERE WAS A MUCH LARGER bunch of people after 6:00pm.  Normally, you see the most people around 12:30-2:00 at many of the festivals.  However, at festivals in Stockton and other cities where it gets hot, people come out later in the day.  That is the case for this one.  But all these people were not buying from me and were just milling around socializing and when that happens, it is time to go.

 

THERE WAS A 10-yr old young lady who made a 5-dollar purchase from me.  She handed me a 10-dollar bill that she had folded up into a tiny little piece.  I took the money and unfolded it.  In return, I grabbed a five-dollar bill and folded it up exactly the way she did and handed it to her.  "Thank you," I said to her.  We both laughed.

 

WELLS FARGO HAD A BOOTH THERE and there were a couple ladies walking around soliciting.  You know by now that I don't like that and I don't want anybody doing that near my booth.  So, one of the ladies comes by with clipboard in hand and asks me which bank do I use.  I told her 'Wells Fargo."  Actually, it's none of her business and she has no business asking people where they bank at. She then asked me if I was happy with them and of course, I had to tell her "no."  She then began asking me more questions as to why I didn't like them.  I told her that "I really don't care and I don't feel like talking about it."  She then tried to hand me her card and said that if I had any problems that I could call her.  I said "no thank you.  I do not want your card.  I am here to make money and I am not interested."  Hasta la vista, baby.

 

 

 

Sunday, August 15.

 

WE ARRIVED at the festival around 7:30am and I was lucky enough to have gotten the very last parking spot on the street behind my booth.  Got it in the nick of time as there was another car on that street in the other lane looking for a spot.  Would not have liked parking two blocks away.

 

PICK UP YOUR TRASH!!  I had this young 17-18 year old white young lady come into the booth and ask about our smaller shoulder bags and I told her that the price was $8.00 and she then asked if she 'could have it for five.'  I told her "No, this is not a flea market. You can go to Galt on Tuesday or Wednesday and it's only 30 miles from here."  I then told her that she could have it for $7.  Half an hour, she comes into the booth with her raggedy, half-crocked buy claiming to be her father, which he was.  He looks at the bag that she wanted and as he is pulling out his money, he says that all he has is $6.50.  I frowned and told him I'd sell it to him for that price.  All of a sudden, this guy pulls out a twenty.  I was shocked.  He intentionally fooled me into thinking that he had no more money and I was being nice to him.

 

I looked at him and told him that I didn't appreciate what he just did but "since I am a better person than you I will let you have it for $6.50.  But I don't like what you just did."

He then explains to me that 'he's trying to teach his daughter to bargain' when she makes purchases.'  I looked at him and just shook my head.  "Yeah, you are teaching her something that isn't very nice.  What you did was wrong and I really don't recommend her doing that."

 

THE WEATHER was a bit warmer on Sunday and there was a larger crowd there during the day.  However, most of the people just stood in the shade most of the day and socialized and ate. 

 

OUR SALES weren't all that great for the event and the other vendor's did better than us.  They had items more appropriate for a Filipino event as we were just selling our regular merchandise.  No big deal.

 

I WASN'T ABLE TO HEAR OR SEE the performances on the main stage.  But we did have a booth with a karaoke set up and we heard a variety of 'performances' there.  There were a huge number of 'Celine Dion' wannabees and they were nothing short of atrocious.  I think that you need to keep this karaoke stuff inside behind locked doors and closed windows.  I wanted so much to walk over and play the part of Simon Cowell.  There were some decent 'singers' there, but a majority of them sounded like it was their first time or they were the Best of Shower Singers 1997. However, this was all in fun and these people were enjoying themselves.  There was one lady there who was so bad that she ended up getting a standing ovation from everybody in the vicinity including me, 30 feet away in my booth.  I had to listen to two days of this stuff.  Ohhhhh.  My ears!!!  Makes you want to screeaaaaammmmm!  There were a number of guys that had some nice vocals and were much better than some of the ladies that sang.

 

WE HAD AN APPEARANCE from some members of the Jerry Springer Society of Sorry Ass Americans which seems common in just about every show.  Saw a number of tatoos and along with other castoffs wearing assorted body jewelry stop by but the individuals sprouting these body ornaments, etc., were not Filipino.  Speaking of trash, I had somebody rip off one of my animal backpacks on Saturday.  I did see a number of bikers there, but they were okay.  No problem.  Just enjoying the festival like everybody else.

 

IT WAS TOUCH AND GRAB Sunday, as we, once again, had herds of kids stopping by our booth to play with our merchandise.  I do have some breakage and I really do not appreciate that.

 

MOE, LARRY, CURLY TO THE RESCUE.  We were told around 6:15 that we would be able to bring our vehicles into the plaza to load up at 7:00.  We began packing just shortly before that.  One of the other vendor's came to me and said that we wouldn't be able to come in until 7:30.  I asked one of the Rent-a-bops and he told me that we had to wait until 8:00.  I then asked  Beany and Cecil, two other RAB's and they said we couldn't come in until everybody had departed.  We were located in an area of the show where the crowds were not congregating en masse and it would be easy to drive in unobstructed.  Gosh, that's a real pisser.  Nobody knows what the hell is going on.  All the while they were communicating with their main KGB headquarters via talkie-walkies and they were changing plans every 3 minutes.  Finally we got the msg right around 7:00 and we were able to get in and load up.  Gone.