So, how was it?

Hi everyone! ;)

I hope you all had a great weekend! Here I've been swamped catching up on the short weekend I had because of the fair. Are you curious to know how it went?

We got to Venise en Quebec on time despite a little accident I had in the morning (orange juice on my white shirt the minute I got in the car….. my kind of luck) Everything went as planned, or almost. The organizers were super nice and the fair was set up very nicely. It was a tiny fair but there was still a small "coffee shop" table if I may say were we could fill up on a few snacks and drinks. We had unusual freezing temperature for this time in July but by early in the afternoon the sun was up and burning, and our bottle of water became our best friend.

I must admit we had fewer visitors than I expected - it was a small fair after all - but the fact that it was something that was going on every Saturday of summer and the many years it has been going on was an aspect I relied too much on I believe. I could not have the information on how many visitors they had last year and I thought it would be something difficult to evaluate too since the fair is spread on nine weeks. I had a chance to test some new adjustments I had made on my displays and I was quite happy to see it was working really well. Although I'll still make some more updates for my future fairs this year like in Henryville. Unfortunately I had no place to hang my lovely new banner from Vista print, I Was so hoping to try it out last week-end! Oh well, another time then ;)

But you say, how did you find the outdoor experience? Well as much as I love summer and outdoors I can't say I really enjoyed that part of the show. The fair was on the yard or the church with a big and solid tent and looked quite nice. But fighting with insects flying and crawling on my table, the concentrated heat inside the tent was no fun part for me but I could cope with it. What really made the balance shift is when the wind started to blow in the middle of the afternoon. It was a storm wind and by the time the fair ended we were afraid to be caught in that storm. I had to be extra careful all afternoon as the wind flew over my table and threatened my watercolors that were on display on various small easels. Needless to say I had to put the artwork flat on the table to prevent them to fly around and get damaged. Thank God the cardboards I put behind them helped them stay on the table because of the weight. So unfortunately I wasn't able to take as much picture of the fair that I would have liked but I've shared in this article all that I have.

Lessons for the other craft shows? Always bring a change of clothes you never know what can happen. Also, research the fair and get to know the number of visitors they had the year before. I know there are many articles on the web that stress the importance of this part and I totally agree but in this case I was invited to the fair. It wasn't the first time I was invited to a show and I had as many wonderful and not so good fairs this way, so I decided to leave it up to chance this time. No more outdoor fairs for me as the wind also brought dust all over my display and I spent an awefull lot of time cleaning everything when I got back home.

But I'm happy to say despite everything I met some lovely new artisans and say some familiar faces too, it was great to catch up with them and see what they had new. I had overall a nice experience and I can't wait for my other fairs...! :) And obviously, I'll share know all the juicy details! :)

On this everyone have a great day!!
*M*

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