Long extended trips to shows, etc.

[davejs]

There are a number of people who pack up and hit the road for a succession of shows where they do not come home for 3-4+ weeks at a time. Let's hear about your trips. What shows did you do? Was it worth it? Where did you stay?

[davejs]

I have a couple trips that we take during the year. There are very few good shows in most of California in January and February (except for Whiskey Flat Days in Feb). We pack up our motor home and do the Tyson Wells Sell-a-Rama and then the Arts and Crafts Show there. The biggest obstacle is the wind, which will blow quite strongly on occasion and you get sand all over the place. Of course, we cook our own food. Spaces that include motor homes in the Sell-a-Rama are expensive, so we camp out in the BLM area. Thousands of RV's out there, but we always find a nice somewhat secluded spot. Between shows, we head on over to the big, gigantic, booming town of Blythe to load up on food and get a good dinner.

For the A&C Show, we keep our motor home in our space. Not too expensive, but this year, the show was substantially much slower than the Sell-a-Rama.

[davejs]

In mid-July, we head up to Oregon and do some county fairs. I've done fairs along Highway 5 (Jackson County Fair) and it can get hotter than hell there and quite uncomfortable. This year, we are sticking to the coast, where it can get a little overcast and cooler. We start off at the Winchester Bay Oceanfest (3 days) which is held in a parking lot. 12x20 spaces are $100 for commercial and $75 for A&C. We have had to endure extremly windy conditions there. We have heavy grids along the sides of our display, but we need to fill up our buckets with water and secure them to the legs of the canopy. Every year, I see several canopies going airborne.

We also do three county fairs. Heading up to Madras for the Jefferson County Fair, Myrtle Point for the Coos County Fair and lastly, the Tillamook County Fair. We have done Coos in the past, but not the other two. Have been trying to find fairs suitable for us. We do the fairs in Oregon because there aren't really that many shows in the Bay Area (SF) to do and this is like a vacation and enjoyable. I love to set up and sit around for 5 days selling.

If anybody wants more info on fairs in Oregon, email me and I'll give you the scoop.

[bmermaid]

Funny, I was just mapping out a show route through OR & WA in July... then over to ND to do a show near my mother. I've been wanting to do this for a while, call it Mermaid on Tour.

I prefer handmade only, but maybe you (or someone) know about these shows I'm looking at:
Art & the garden, eugene 4th of july wkend
McMinnville Turkey Rama
Gig Harbor, WA
Renton River Days, Wa

This would be my first month long trip. EEeeeee. I think I would have to head to the coast to camp during the week. I'm a coastal girl, the heat melts me. Any decent coastal shows in July would be great to know about.

woot.

[davejs]

Feb 21, 2010 16:34:16 GMT -5 bmermaid said:

Funny, I was just mapping out a show route through OR & WA in July... then over to ND to do a show near my mother. I've been wanting to do this for a while, call it Mermaid on Tour.

I prefer handmade only, but maybe you (or someone) know about these shows I'm looking at:
Art & the garden, eugene 4th of july wkend
McMinnville Turkey Rama
Gig Harbor, WA
Renton River Days, Wa

This would be my first month long trip. EEeeeee. I think I would have to head to the coast to camp during the week. I'm a coastal girl, the heat melts me. Any decent coastal shows in July would be great to know about.

woot.

I've been doing County Fairs up there for the past 5 years in July and August. I don't know much about the weekend festivals, etc. Too much 'dead time' during the week for me. I've been doing the Winchester Bay Oceanfest (mid-July) for several years but I don't know if you would like it. Very windy there and you really have to secure your canopy for 30+ mph winds. Overcast quite a bit; usual coastal weather. Show is a little better than a flea market, but I did okay there. Probably 50 vendors. One of our members, abaworld (Pete) lives up in Coos Bay and does many shows up in Oregon and I am sure he can give you insight into a number of shows there. There are others who do shows in Oregon who stop by this forum occasionally and hopefully they can give you insight. Do you subscribe to Craftmaster News? You can find a good number of shows in OR and WA in it.

If you are interested in driving over to the other side of Oregon (east of Highway 5) I might recommend Sister's. They have frequent A&C Shows there and it's in a truly beautiful area of the state. Quite scenic but mountainous with a lot of zig-zag up and down highways. (kind of rough for my motorhome).

[bmermaid]

Ok well I'm officially sending off applications to the shows I listed above. Hoping I get into all of them, for my Mermaid Tour 2010... maybe I need t-shirts, like a rock concert. lol.

So now I'm thinking more about logistics for a 6 week trip!

I guess foremost on my mind is the amount of stock I will need. Out of the 5 shows, 3 are 3-day fairs. All but one are handmade only arty fairs, which are usually very good for me.

I have a chevy express cargo van, just your standard delivery type van, and I don't want to carry a trailer. My boyfriend is saying I should just make as much as will fit in the van and go. I am thinking I might need to make stuff on the road...which would mean a couple days in a hotel.

Any thoughts? Tips?

SO excited for this! It's been a long time coming.

[davejs]

Mar 30, 2010 12:40:04 GMT -5 bmermaid said:

Ok well I'm officially sending off applications to the shows I listed above. Hoping I get into all of them, for my Mermaid Tour 2010... maybe I need t-shirts, like a rock concert. lol.

So now I'm thinking more about logistics for a 6 week trip!

I guess foremost on my mind is the amount of stock I will need. Out of the 5 shows, 3 are 3-day fairs. All but one are handmade only arty fairs, which are usually very good for me.

I have a chevy express cargo van, just your standard delivery type van, and I don't want to carry a trailer. My boyfriend is saying I should just make as much as will fit in the van and go. I am thinking I might need to make stuff on the road...which would mean a couple days in a hotel.

Any thoughts? Tips?

SO excited for this! It's been a long time coming.

Which shows are you planning on doing? Location?

[bmermaid]

I listed them a few posts up ^^^^^

OR & WA

[davejs]

Feb 21, 2010 16:34:16 GMT -5 bmermaid said:

Funny, I was just mapping out a show route through OR & WA in July... then over to ND to do a show near my mother. I've been wanting to do this for a while, call it Mermaid on Tour.

I prefer handmade only, but maybe you (or someone) know about these shows I'm looking at:
Art & the garden, eugene 4th of july wkend
McMinnville Turkey Rama
Gig Harbor, WA
Renton River Days, Wa

This would be my first month long trip. EEeeeee. I think I would have to head to the coast to camp during the week. I'm a coastal girl, the heat melts me. Any decent coastal shows in July would be great to know about.

woot.

okay. I guess I found it. Forgot that you had posted this last month. Please keep us posted on your trip. Would like to hear how the shows go.

[suktexas]

Mar 30, 2010 12:40:04 GMT -5 bmermaid said:

Ok well I'm officially sending off applications to the shows I listed above. Hoping I get into all of them, for my Mermaid Tour 2010... maybe I need t-shirts, like a rock concert. lol.

So now I'm thinking more about logistics for a 6 week trip!

I guess foremost on my mind is the amount of stock I will need. Out of the 5 shows, 3 are 3-day fairs. All but one are handmade only arty fairs, which are usually very good for me.

I have a chevy express cargo van, just your standard delivery type van, and I don't want to carry a trailer. My boyfriend is saying I should just make as much as will fit in the van and go. I am thinking I might need to make stuff on the road...which would mean a couple days in a hotel.

Any thoughts? Tips?

SO excited for this! It's been a long time coming.

do you mind i ask, what do you sell?

[bmermaid]

Oh sure, I sell hand dyed clothing... so I do need a ton of stock for folks to find what they want.

Although, I was thinking of scaling back the number of different items for this trip, so I won't likely run out of any one thing. Like, not so many tops, but take only the best skirts, shawls, dresses.

[suktexas]

i know everyone situation is different and different product sell differently in the same show. it is very hard to find the right show for my products by looking into the show listings. there are thousand of shows and we can narrow them down into the areas we are looking for, still there are a lot of them.

i have a friend in Lincoln City, Oregon and if i go to show in Oregon, i think i can stay in her house. i am looking into Oregon shows and farmer markets. may be i go to oregon for 3 months, and do shows during the summer months and then come back doing the winter months in mesa, az.

i read the post here and one of the poster i forget his name said the shows in oregon are a little bit better than flea market. so, it is not too good.

Dave, i wonder how much you pay for your oregon county fair shows.

i try to make my hand craft necklace, bracelet, earring in the range of $3 - $20, no more than $20 because of the economy, i can feel a lot of people are sealing their wallet really tight. i loose a few sales, as they pick up the jewelries, want to pay, and find out they do not have enough cash to pay for them. go to ATM, and cannot get money. they said they will be back for the jewelries, and they do not come back.

i do know there are people selling Crafts in the farmer markets, and i do not know how good the crafts sales are for jewelries as most people go to farmer markets for fruits, vegetables, honey,......

i would like to thanks Paula for her input to our questions! She is really an access to this forum.

i have a small car only and i would like to limit my items to small in size. also, i am a newbie in this area and i may ask similar questions that some other vendors had asked before. i apologized if i do!

my questions are
1. do anyone has experience selling craft jewelries in farmer market?
2. most of the county fair are expensive as there are more people coming? have anyone sell craft jewelries good in county fair?
3. i guess most county fair we have to send our application nearly a year ahead of time.
4. how much usually cost to do the oregon county fair?

thanks

[suktexas]

i heard from some other chinese vendors that they live in san francisco had sold in northern california but there are too much competition, and they always go north out of california to sell. they go to washington in Aug and Sep for shows there. they said they do ok there. i do not ask the name of the shows as it is very far for me to drive alone. i would prefer a closer area to sell. california is too much competition, nevada and arizona is too hot in summer. i am looking into oregon, utah, colorado. in this forum, there are not much talking about shows in utah, colorado. any suggestion where i can find some inputs?

[bmermaid]

Feb 21, 2010 16:34:16 GMT -5 bmermaid said:

Funny, I was just mapping out a show route through OR & WA in July... then over to ND to do a show near my mother. I've been wanting to do this for a while, call it Mermaid on Tour.

I prefer handmade only, but maybe you (or someone) know about these shows I'm looking at:
Art & the garden, eugene 4th of july wkend
McMinnville Turkey Rama
Gig Harbor, WA
Renton River Days, Wa

This would be my first month long trip. EEeeeee. I think I would have to head to the coast to camp during the week. I'm a coastal girl, the heat melts me. Any decent coastal shows in July would be great to know about.

woot.

Mermaid Tour Update: It's on!

So far I have been confirmed for 3 out of 5 shows. One more has me on the wait list, but they're saying I'm most likely in. At this point, I'm saying it's officially a plan. Starting on 4th of July wkend, I'll (hopefully) have 5 shows over 6 weeks ending in Bismarck. It's possible I will fly from ND to Wash. DC for a visit with my wedding dress maker (and best friend) before heading back to CA.

I smell an adventure...

[mcwier]

spent over 30 years on the road. including 7 on the state fair rout. 14,000 miles a year in 20 states, from Florida to Maine and S Carolina to kansas and ever where in between, loved every minute of it.