THE CHICKEN FESTIVAL
Date:  September 19-20, 2009     San Juan Bautista, CA 

Since 2007, Celebrating the roosters and chickens that roam the streets in this historic town with special events such as crowing contests, arts and crafts, chicken bbq, music and dancing and more.  Here's a poster that you can click on and read about the event.  For the time being, why don't you cruise on down the page to 'The Lighter Side' for a different perspective.  Click here to see a pdf flyer of the event.

San Juan Bautista.  Incorporated in 1869 the general law City of San Juan Bautista is nestled in the heart of the noted San Juan Valley between the Gabilan Mountains and Flint Hills.  Rich with culture and history, San Juan Bautista offers her residents and visitors a refreshing small town atmosphere filled with the charm and character of the past.  To read more about the history, etc., please click here

The Mission   The buildings that face San Juan Bautista's central plaza represent several periods of California history. The mission, founded in 1797, is the oldest.

THE WEATHER is looking fine for the weekend.  Temps supposed to be in the low 80s and partly cloudy.  Tell me that ain't good chicken weather!!
THE REVIEW
This was not a very good show for the vendors and you know something was wrong when they lowered the booth fee.  This town has several events during the year and sometimes vendors do somewhat okay.  Such was not the case for this event and we could say that perhaps 3,500-4,200 people attended the event over the two days.  Not really a spending crowd and I don't think that this event draws very many tourists.  With proper advertising and a 'good drawing card' you could pick travelers off the highway.  There were around 60-70 vendors and 4-5 food booths along with a little bit of entertainment, which livened things up a little bit.  Perhaps the highlight of the event was the Chicken Dance contest and that certainly isn't going to draw people there.  I don't see 20,000 people flocking here for that, ya know?  Seemingly a local crowd with maybe people from Hollister and Gilroy.  Booth fees were reasonable, but there was a reason for that.  Never travel far for this one, I didn't.

If you wish to add YOUR comments about the event, please use the HOTLINE.

Saturday, September 19.  Left home at 6:05 and headed to San Juan Bautista.  Not much traffic on the road, of course.  After passing Gilroy, it was becoming rather foggy until Highway 156, where I turned off 101 toward SJB.  It was a couple miles down the road, but with the fog and windshield steaming up, I had my hands full.  I missed the specified exit and drove past the town and had to spin around and go back.

THE SETUP.  I arrived there around 6:25 and looked for my space.  I was next to a guy selling belts, but he had his truck and trailer extending a couple spaces down and I had to go around and back up to me space, where I unloaded.  I was open for business by 9:45.

I'd guess perhaps 70 booths, with a good number of them north of me being antiques.  Usually with antique shows, people arrive early.  Not here.  I don't think the people ever arrived at all.  Crowds were extremely light as we approached noontime.  Not a heck of a lot during the afternoon and it became a ghost town by 2:30-3:00.

I WAS TOLD THAT THIS REALLY wasn't a very good show.  I asked my neighbor to my right if she was there last year.  She said 'no.'  I told her I wasn't there either,  Spoke to another neighbor and he said he wasn't there last year either..... I replied 'oh oh.'  Asked another.  'oh oh,' was my response to that one also.  Not a hell of a lot of returnees.

NOT A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT OF PEOPLE, I must admit and they surely don't come from 100 miles away to see this.  Maybe they have chicken races a couple blocks away and there's 30,000 people watching.  Dunno.  They didn't quote any kind of figure for Craftmaster, but maybe we probably had between 1,308 and 1,475 today at most and that, my friends, is counting the chickens also.

PORTA POTTIE REPORT.   Maybe they had 4 for the entire show.  They were pretty clean, but it's not like they were coming by every hour to clean them.  Always had plenty of toilet paper.  So, obviously not very many people were using them.  This item has to be on the 'Top ten list of things that tell you this is a bad show.'

I WAS WALKING AROUND and passed by a young gentleman, perhaps 9-10 years old approach a guy selling gold chains.  "Where did you get this from?" I heard the kid ask.  Come on, dude.  This is Xavier Krugerand and he owns a bunch of gold mines in South Africa.

THE VENDORS did not do very good today and my sales were low, just on the fringes of 'doozie-ism.'  Other vendors did much worse than I did, but considering the booth fee, not a total complete disaster.  Maybe half a disaster.  Don't know.  Reminds me of the time I went grocery shopping with my wife and we were picking out some bread.  "How about whole wheat?" I asked her.  "No, just half," was her reply.  Hilarious.  Priceless.

   



  

A LADY WAS PURCHASING A HAT and found a tag on it.  Asked my daughter if she could take the tag off for her.  I looked at her.  "You can't take it off.  You know how it says on your mattresses that if you take the tag off, you'll go to jail?....  Same thing."  We all started to laugh.

DA FOOD.  They had several non-profit food booths that sold sausages, hamburgers, etc.  I found a nice Cafe on the corner about a block away that had a nice selection of items.  I picked out a BLT with avocado on it.  Gosh, that was really delicious.  Probably the best BLT I have ever had.  That gets 3 3/4 ***'s.  Will go there again on Sunday.  More things on their menu that I like.  No Philly Cheesesteak though.  That's okay.




PISTACHIO ICE CREAM.  Had another craving for pistachio this morning and picked up a cupful at this ice-cream place.  It was good.  A lot more taste to it than the one I had the other week at Casa de Knappa.

CLOSING UP.  I began wrapping up things around 4:20....figuring that it would take me until around 5:00 to get out of there.  If you don't have a fat lady singing, then It ain't over until the last cover is up, the last bungee is bungeed, the last clip is clipped.  As I headed toward my van I confronted a upper-middled-aged guy walking his dog.  I looked at him.  "What's the quickest way out of town?" I asked him.  He explained how to get to the highway AND I WAS GONE.  It is not that easy finding 156 from downtown because you can only get onto it two ways.

THIS TOWN is quite old and I certainly did not notice any new buildings, as this place maintains it's antiquity and a certain serenity.  They have a number of craft shows here during the year and quite possibly, these people might be 'crafted out.'  I don't see very many tourists finding this place, as they would have to deviate from their route between Monterey and Gilroy.  On the way out, as I circled around the back streets, I passed by the Mission, which would be nice to visit.

THE WEATHER WAS NICE.  It can get well up into the 100s this time of year, but it wasn't even close.  We are going through a mini-hot spell in the East Bay/valleys, but temps were around 80 degrees all day long.  We did get some pretty strong winds which rocked my canopy left and right.  Maybe 20mph?

I HAVE A QUESTION.  Where the hell are the chickens?  Saw two people walk by wearing chicken hats, but nothing else having to do with chickens.  That's clucked!!!

Sunday, September, 20.

This is the day for the women to leave their hen-pecked husbands at home to watch the football games and get out and spend some of that money that half of them are going to win today.   He bet $500?  This is California baby, half for him and half for me (wife).

I arrived there just before 10:00.  As I exited Highway 156 and headed down Monterey St., I suddenly realized that they were going to have a parade around that time and hoped that I wouldn't have a hard time finding a parking spot.  I turned onto the street nearest my booth and found a spot (in a red zone), but checked and found out I could park there.  Didn't want to walk 3-4 blocks.  The event actually was one block away from the mission itself.  Wish I could have had a chance to walk around there.  Recall that a great many of the missions are located along Highway 101 and were started by Father Junipero Serra.  I believe that this horse trail was once called El Camino Real and of course, originally made of dirt and a well-traveled route of horses and buggies.  Paved over a few times since then.



THE WEATHER WAS NICE ALL DAY LONG.  On the way there, I hit some fog (again) just before I exited 101, but it disappeared quickly.

THE PARADE was around 10:30-11:00, but wasn't very long.  It passed along a side street near us and probably lasted 20 minutes at most.  No dancing chickens.  No chicken floats.  A couple people dressed up in chicken outfits, that's about it.  Miss Chicken 2009 was there.  Legs were kind of skinny though. Here's a shot of the Chicken Dance competition they had during the afternoon. 



SALES WERE PRETTY DECENT UNTIL the 'parade crowd' dissipated.  I exceeded my income from Saturday by 12:15 but sales were few and far between after that throughout the remainder of the afternoon.

A RATHER STRIKEINGLY LARGE LADY comes over and grabs hold of one of our belly dancer skirts.  "I need two of them," she comments.  I look at her.  "I can give three for $30.

HERE WE GO AGAIN.  Two ladies came over to my booth and one of them grabbed hold of one of my 'coolie hats' and put it on her head.  I watched as her friend stepped about 3-4 feet away and I felt it coming.  Just as I stood up from my chair, I saw that camera coming up.  "Uh Uh Uh," I said loudly as I approached them.  "No pictures please."  "I just wanted to take a picture to show her what she looks like,' said her friend.  Then the girl with the hat on says that she's going to buy it.  "How come we can't take a picture?"  "Because that is my hat and when you buy it, you can do anything you want with it."  "I just wanted to see what I look like."   I looked at her "Yah, right...uh huh.  I have a mirror over there for that."  She got pretty mad and starts going into a rant that she was going to buy it...... blah blah blah.  They left, but she came back about 45 minutes later and told me that she couldn't find anybody else selling it.

WALKING THROUGH TOWN, I get the impression I'm down in Mexico off the beaten path seeing the sand colored cantina's, etc.  Maybe I expect Bush Chastity and the Sand-dance Kid to come flying through a bar window guns a-blazing.  (see The Lighter Side)  Of course, throw in some chickens and hens strolling down the streets and you really get that feeling.  You could probably film an old Western here.  NOTE:  The 1958 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Vertigo was filmed here at the mission.  You can read about it.

I BEGAN PACKING AROUND 3:00.  Had a lot to pack up but it was a slow procedure, just packing a little bit at a time, leaving our best sellers out until around 4:30.  I was finished at 4:50 and my canopy was down, etc.  I drove in at 5:00 and was out of there by 5:25.  Over and done.

THE PROMOTER'S OF THE EVENT probably did a decent job with what they had to work with.  They got the vendors in at a decent booth fee and they had entertainment within their budget.  This show is not going to draw a lot of people but a fair show for the locals.  The bottom line is that the people just don't spend money with reckless abandon anymore because of numerous reasons known to everybody.  What more can you do?  Money does not flow like water.  I am a vendor and this 'review' was my perspective on the show along with the opinions of other vendors.
 
THE LIGHTER SIDE
A not-so-serious way to look at this week's festival and not to be taken seriously.





San Juan Bautista, CA.  Bush Chastity and the Sand Dance Kid robbed the First National Bank in this small community between Gilroy and Hollister on Friday afternoon.  They parked their horses on the street near the bank and walked inside.  Suddenly, they came out guns-blazing shooting them into the air as bystanders watched in awe.  As they rode away, they tossed hundred dollar bills along the street as people ran over and scooped up what they could.  Police cruisers stopped also and the officer's hopped out of their vehicles and grabbed what they could without pursuing the outlaws, who disappeared along city street.  "Damm," said one of the officers as he shoved some of the money down his shirt. "This is more fucking money than I make in a year.  I was going to call in sick today to watch the Red Sox on DirecTV.  I hope my wife don't hear about this."  It is believed that the villains are holed up at somebody's house nearby. 
The Officers finished scooping up the money and then laughed on the way to the bank.


    

   

Do you have problems with kids skateboarding up and down the sidewalk in back of your booth.  Occasionally, I run into this at shows.  I recall when we did the Pizza Festival (doozie).  Punks going back and forth all weekend long.  The kid's ruled that show.  Anyhow, if you have problems with these kid's why don't you make some large 8x10 signs of this and post them up and down the sidewalk.  Matter of fact, I might even make up a vendor's page of signs for all purposes.