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The new year has started off quite rough as I headed to Arizona, where good weather is expected to prevail.  Uh uh uh.  Not this year.  Please be sure to check out the reviews on the two shows I was in Tyson Wells for - The Sell-a-Rama and the Arts and Crafts Show.  On Thursday, January 21, we had a severe storm with winds in excess of 70mph which uprooted over 50 canopies.  Both of mine toppled over and crumbled mercilessly to the ground.  You can see the pictures here.





Oct 2009.  Just because there is no wind that doesn't mean that your canopy still can not collapse.  I was at the Alma Heights Flea Market in Pacifica back in October.  I had made a huge blunder in setting up my display.  Even after 16 years of doing shows, I still screwed up.



After setting up my canopy, I positioned my grids 7 on each side.  I usually 'corner' them, arranging them perpendicular to one another.  However, this time the moon, stars and everything else must have been aligned because I mistakenly arranged the grids without cornering them.  Bad move.  Might have been just a slight puff of wind that blew my canopy over.  If I had corners or a number of grids arranged perpendicular to one another this would not have happened.  Talk about a bad hair day.  Vendor's take heed!!!!

How often do you check weather forecasts for upcoming events.  Do you find yourself looking at the 10 and 15 day forecasts? 
 
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THE FORUM.  Please be sure to visit our forum whose membership is growing.  Join in on discussions featuring all aspects of sell at events.  Share your knowledge with us or get information on anything and everything associated with fairs, swap meets, festivals, etc.


 

Visit 'The Best of Starving Vendors' where I share you many of the hilarious and interesting things that have happened at our events.



   

Check out the Daily Dose.  An excellent place to start your tour of the Starving Vendors website.  A daily log of events, stories, links, gas prices, weather reports, commentary, etc.  Anything goes.  I think that you will enjoy reading it.  Just click on the image to the right.

  
  Welcome to Starving Vendor's Monthly Magazine.  I expect to feature a number of pages, articles, reviews, etc. from the website. This is our first issue and I hope to update you on the content included in our website and make it easier to navigate to items of interest.  I hope that all of you enjoyed the newsletter that went out and I will try to send one out every month.  In future issues of our magazine, I will focus on recent issues of importance to vendors.

Channel 23 news in Bakersfield reads:
 Whiskey Flat Days Marred by Vendor Thefts
Nearly a Dozen Vendors Stolen From

Feb 15.  KERNVILLE, Calif.  It is one of the most popular events to attend in the Kern County mountains.  But this weekend's Whiskey Flat Days events have been marred, a bit, by theft.

The Kern County Sheriff's Department is looking into 10-12 reports of merchandise being stolen from vendors in Kernville.  Event organizers had heard that up to 21 vendors had said items were stolen this weekend.  Please click here to read more about this.
                                  FUN WITH WORDS 
We all hear a lot of things from our customers and I am sure that all of us create our own little sayings as we move from show to show.  I have a section in the website called Vendor Terminology.  Here is one of the definitions of a term we frequently hear:

 One Dollah.  I guess this is a greeting that some people use when looking at things in your booth.  Example:  One Dollah?   and to which you reply:  Oh, good morning to you too. Beautiful day, huh?uh?

HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS HIT TYSON WELLS. DOZENS OF CANOPIES UPROOTED!!
January 21.  Tyson Wells Sell-a-Rama, Quartzsite, AZ.  Can you imagine the havoc that winds in excess of 70mph can create?  The wind is the fiercest element of weather that we have to endure.  We can protect our canopies and displays from the rain but when you have extremely strong winds in excess of 50 miles per hour, there is pretty much little that you can do.  We all have enough sense to weigh down our canopies in areas where we experience strong winds.  However, when I experience hurricane-force winds in Tyson Wells during the late afternoon of Thursday, January 21, there was little that could be done.  Canopies were flying everywhere.  Mine had quite a bit of weight holding it down but the winds actually blew both my canopies over.  The winds were coming from the north end of the show and wiped out a huge portion of vendor's canopies in the last 3-4 rows.  Vendors situated in the interior rows were protected by the many motor homes located in those rows and the closeness of the canopies.  Click on the thumbnails to see larger images.



There were seller's whose canopies were completely destroyed and their goods were left open to the elements of the weather.  Some lost thousands of dollars of their inventory.  I had never seen anything like that.  I spoke to a number of people who were sitting in cars in the parking lot waiting out the 'storm' and they told me that it was quite a sight watching dozens of canopies going up in the air.  There were a number of canopies that were never found again.  We had canopies landing on top of other canopies and vehicles.  It was dangerous to be out wandering around during the storm as people had to avoid being struck by flying canopies.