When I began my blog, I promised myself I would blog regularly - at least once a week. This was a promise I kept for a long, long time and then everything went to pot! As we all know, life has a bad habit of getting in the way of plans. I am sorry everyone for not keeping you up-to-date with what I am doing and more important, not keeping up-to-date with what you have been doing. I will try to return to my regularly blogging ways and hopefully this post will update everyone with what has been happening in Christmas Pie land.
My 'makes' have been in the pottery section - not items for sale, but for fun. I have been concentrating on my 'hat people'. You may recall that a long time ago, I made a 'hat man' who now sports a very glossy black hat. Along the same lines as Hat Man, I now have Hat Woman; she has a large brimmed hat, also shiny black and this has a red flower attached to the hat. Her lips didn't quite turn out colour-wise as I had hoped and I will be painting them a nice bright shiny red. The photographs are Hat Man first, followed by Hat Woman:
I am currently working on another Hat Lady - this one has a very wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. Unfortunately, I have problems making lips (as you can see from these offerings) and a fellow pottery student said Wide-Brimmed Hat Lady looked a lot like Mick Jagger - I may have to re-name her to him.
In addition to pottery, I have been working hard on organising the events now re-named Godalming Bazaar. So much of what is needed to set up events takes place behind the scenes and of course, as those of you who have organised events or taken part in them knows, there is always so much more that could be and should be done to make them go with a bang. For the June event, I and most of the stallholders taking part handed out flyers, posted posters and encouraged everyone they knew to come along to the event.
Adverts were placed in local publications (one delivered to 23,000 homes in the Godalming area), online and we had a mention in the What's On section of The Guide to Guildford. I even had t-shirts printed with the Godalming Bazaar information emblazoned on the front and back - here is a picture of one of our stallholding promoters (Dawn of Stonepit Crafts) wearing her Bazaar outfit. Dawn and two other t-shirt wearers went out and about into the Saturday shopping crowds to promote the event on the day. One big disappointment was that despite being advised that delivery of one of the magazines I had advertised in would take place prior to the event to 23,000 homes, I found out last week that it did not take place until after the event. Such a waste of a lot of money. A very expensive lesson learned.
The event wasn't as well attended as I had hoped, it wasn't helped by clashing with the Godalming Town Show that took place on the same day. However, as the procession went past our 'front door' I had hoped we would be able to welcome some passers-by in before they went off to the field for other events. I had hoped to work with the Town Show organisers, but they wanted a contribution of £150 for the privilege of a couple of shout-outs over the tannoy on the day- cone on, Town Show Organisers, I am a small-business person! My next event is in September, so plenty of time to come up with a miracle or two - any ideas anyone on how to get more people through the door?
I have booked a different venue for a Christmas event: Fairlands Community Hall. The event is taking place on Saturday, 13 December and will run from 10.30 am - 4.30 pm. I am hopeful that this venue will be a successful one, but I know that it takes hard work to get people through the doors and then more hard work from the stallholders to get them to spend.
A visitor to the event, also our 'official photographer' has written a great post from a customer's point of view. Once I have published it I will add a link on here - it makes very interesting reading and carries lots of valid points both for stallholders and organisers. (me, specifically)
I bought myself a Cricut Explore recently and am looking forward to getting back to card-making and bag decorating - so watch this space for me getting back to 'normal' or trying to.
Have a great week everyone - don't forget to come back for the guest blog post about the Godalming Bazaar event and of course it almost goes without saying, pop over to Handmade Monday to see how everyone is getting on.
Jill
How frustrating to put so much effort in & be disappointed with footfall. Sorry I have no pearls of wisdom yo throw into the pot but here's to the September event:)
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the wasted advertising. I once found 100s of slimmimg world leaflets in my bin and on 'phoning the number on them found that the lady had paid a lot to have them in the local free paper. She set about asking for a refund. You really are at the mercy of the printers and distributors with these kind of things. Hope the xmas one is better attended for you., but sadly your experience sounds just like almost every fair I have attended round here though.
ReplyDeleteHehe your hat people are so fun! I'm glad to hear you're still enjoying pottery.
ReplyDeleteRe getting more attendees for your future fairs it seems like a good idea to focus on what kind of people you are hoping to attract and then think about how they might best be reached through advertising. It sounds like your already doing a fantastic job though, keep it up! :)
I absolutely love your hat man and woman, i think they're amazing, and i disagree I think you are doing lips very well!
ReplyDeleteI wish you success for your future events. Annoying with working in retail is that I work every saturday, otherwise I would love to pop along x
See if you can get a LINK on your local City "website" under Events or Markets - [hopefully WITHOUT having to Pay for it!] - Otherwise, approach your local ELECTED Reps and have them RE-Tweet or whatever your Event... Those Guys always love a good photo-op and a Crowd!
ReplyDeleteOh the joys of advertising. Another tale of give us your money and we will mess it up for you. Hope Septemeber goes better for you.
ReplyDeleteI love your hat people, I think the lips are great. I can imagine promoting fairs is really hard work and tricky too. Fingers crossed the next one gets lots more people through the door.
ReplyDeleteJill, so sorry your event didn't go as well as hoped. Grrrr on the magazine! I've often seen things advertised on local free press that I may have liked to pop along to only to realise it was all over with before the paper plopped on the mat. Very annoying as a potential customer, even more so for the stall holders and organisers. It sounds like you are doing all you can do to promote it. Some local shops will often allow posters in the windows, church magazines are another option if you get in at the right time.
ReplyDelete