August: The Erath Farmers Market
I thought the August Erath Farmers Market would be on August 9th and, unfortunately, advertised it online as such, but the date was actually set for August 23rd. So, on August 23rd, Dawn and I set up our booth yet again at Erath City Park. Business was a little better than the last time. There were more vendors. There was a wood carver; one artist who made toddler aprons out of tea towels and hot pads, which I thought was a nice idea; another jewelry artist; and a vendor who sold soap and vegetables.
Among the rest of the vendors, many of them had attended the previous Erath Farmers Market, which is good. I find that it's a good idea to attend an event if the vendors are willing to return to it. Business can be good, the overall atmosphere amongst customers and vendors alike can be far more pleasant and cheerful, and the event is a lot more fun when the people attending it actually want to be there.
September: The Sugar Cane Festival
The New Iberia Sugar Cane Festival, which Dawn and I attended on September 26th and 27th, was a different story. We'd never set up the booth at an event that was several days long. The festival would be held in downtown New Iberia between Main Street and Bayou Teche. The festival was scheduled to run for four days. Vendors were required to attend on Friday and Saturday with the option of also attending on Thursday and Sunday. Dawn and I couldn't make it on Thursday, so we didn't arrive until Friday. We decided to play it by ear and decide on Saturday if we wanted to return on Sunday. Our decision would depend on business and on our energy levels.
The Sugar Cane Festival has been around for decades. It should have grown every year. It should have been huge this year, and we had high hopes about it. Our hopes were dashed. There were a few reasons for this.
In the week leading up to the festival, rumors had spread that there would be a planned protest against the New Iberia sheriff's department at the festival. I didn't hear about this--or the reasons for the protest--until I was at the festival. Thankfully, the rumors were baseless, and this didn't end up happening. Unfortunately, many people seemed to believe the rumors, because attendance was very low. None of the arts and crafts vendors or food vendors that I spoke to seemed to do very well.
Another factor that may have kept down attendance was that New Iberia held two events that weekend--one in downtown, where I was, and another in the city's fairgrounds, which wasn't anywhere near downtown. The downtown festival included a handful of arts and crafts vendors, a kid's play area, a face painting booth, food and drink vendors, and one music stage. The fairgrounds had fair rides; I don't know what else, since I was downtown all weekend. According to the newspapers I read the following week, the fairgrounds didn't see much business, either.
On Friday, the crowd was a little stronger than on Saturday. Ticket prices were $5 each on Friday (and $10 on Saturday). There was a boat parade, Wayne Toups played that night on the stage, and there was a fireworks show over Bayou Teche. With about three candy sellers spread throughout the festival grounds, a face painter, and a kid's play area full of moonwalks, a climbing wall, and moonwalk rides, there was plenty for families to do. Still, because of the rumors, not many people attended.
On Saturday, there were two parades that morning. First, an impromptu parade of classic cars drove down Main Street. It was around 8:30 AM, before festival attendees had even arrived, and I only saw it because I was at the booth getting it ready before 9 AM, when the festival was scheduled to start that day. The cars were parked along the riverbank for a few hours, but they disappeared before the majority of the day's crowd had even arrived.
The second parade was at 9:30 or so. This one was scheduled. It was a children's parade. Several marching bands and dance studios walked in the parade, and parents pulled wagons dressed up like floats. Their costumed kids sat in the wagons. Lots of people lined either side of Main Street to watch the parade. A handful of those people wandered through the festival area afterward, but most left after the parade was over.
The festival area was pretty much dead until around 3:30 PM that afternoon. Cover bands played the same songs, over and over. They even played the same music as the cover bands from the day before. In between sets, the sound technician played recordings of those very same songs. Between the CD tracks and the live cover bands, we heard "Boogie Shoes" 6 times. We also heard "Play that Funky Music," "It's My Party," and other songs from the same genre over and over. There were a few times when the sound tech almost played some classic rock but would cut off the song after a few seconds and go back to the other songs, which he'd already played several times.
The crowd thickened after 4 PM, when the gates closed and the festival started to charge admission. The crowd was about 300 hundred strong, however, and stayed that way throughout the night. Dawn and I held out until after 8:30 PM, and then we packed up. Other vendors were packing up, too, even though we were supposed to stay until midnight that night. We had no plans to return on Sunday.
The entire weekend had been one big disappointment, and it had been exhausting, too. My canopy suffered the worst. Before the festival, the canopy had been broken in one spot for months; one of the cross bars had snapped. While setting it up on Friday afternoon, a second cross bar snapped. I fixed them both with duct tape, but I forgot to cut off the duct tape on Saturday evening. As a result, another bar snapped while we were taking down the canopy.
The canopy is 5 years old. It wasn't in good shape before the Sugar Cane Festival, but now I worried that it may not even be usable anymore.
I thought the August Erath Farmers Market would be on August 9th and, unfortunately, advertised it online as such, but the date was actually set for August 23rd. So, on August 23rd, Dawn and I set up our booth yet again at Erath City Park. Business was a little better than the last time. There were more vendors. There was a wood carver; one artist who made toddler aprons out of tea towels and hot pads, which I thought was a nice idea; another jewelry artist; and a vendor who sold soap and vegetables.
Among the rest of the vendors, many of them had attended the previous Erath Farmers Market, which is good. I find that it's a good idea to attend an event if the vendors are willing to return to it. Business can be good, the overall atmosphere amongst customers and vendors alike can be far more pleasant and cheerful, and the event is a lot more fun when the people attending it actually want to be there.
September: The Sugar Cane Festival
The New Iberia Sugar Cane Festival, which Dawn and I attended on September 26th and 27th, was a different story. We'd never set up the booth at an event that was several days long. The festival would be held in downtown New Iberia between Main Street and Bayou Teche. The festival was scheduled to run for four days. Vendors were required to attend on Friday and Saturday with the option of also attending on Thursday and Sunday. Dawn and I couldn't make it on Thursday, so we didn't arrive until Friday. We decided to play it by ear and decide on Saturday if we wanted to return on Sunday. Our decision would depend on business and on our energy levels.
The Sugar Cane Festival has been around for decades. It should have grown every year. It should have been huge this year, and we had high hopes about it. Our hopes were dashed. There were a few reasons for this.
In the week leading up to the festival, rumors had spread that there would be a planned protest against the New Iberia sheriff's department at the festival. I didn't hear about this--or the reasons for the protest--until I was at the festival. Thankfully, the rumors were baseless, and this didn't end up happening. Unfortunately, many people seemed to believe the rumors, because attendance was very low. None of the arts and crafts vendors or food vendors that I spoke to seemed to do very well.
Another factor that may have kept down attendance was that New Iberia held two events that weekend--one in downtown, where I was, and another in the city's fairgrounds, which wasn't anywhere near downtown. The downtown festival included a handful of arts and crafts vendors, a kid's play area, a face painting booth, food and drink vendors, and one music stage. The fairgrounds had fair rides; I don't know what else, since I was downtown all weekend. According to the newspapers I read the following week, the fairgrounds didn't see much business, either.
On Friday, the crowd was a little stronger than on Saturday. Ticket prices were $5 each on Friday (and $10 on Saturday). There was a boat parade, Wayne Toups played that night on the stage, and there was a fireworks show over Bayou Teche. With about three candy sellers spread throughout the festival grounds, a face painter, and a kid's play area full of moonwalks, a climbing wall, and moonwalk rides, there was plenty for families to do. Still, because of the rumors, not many people attended.
On Saturday, there were two parades that morning. First, an impromptu parade of classic cars drove down Main Street. It was around 8:30 AM, before festival attendees had even arrived, and I only saw it because I was at the booth getting it ready before 9 AM, when the festival was scheduled to start that day. The cars were parked along the riverbank for a few hours, but they disappeared before the majority of the day's crowd had even arrived.
The second parade was at 9:30 or so. This one was scheduled. It was a children's parade. Several marching bands and dance studios walked in the parade, and parents pulled wagons dressed up like floats. Their costumed kids sat in the wagons. Lots of people lined either side of Main Street to watch the parade. A handful of those people wandered through the festival area afterward, but most left after the parade was over.
The festival area was pretty much dead until around 3:30 PM that afternoon. Cover bands played the same songs, over and over. They even played the same music as the cover bands from the day before. In between sets, the sound technician played recordings of those very same songs. Between the CD tracks and the live cover bands, we heard "Boogie Shoes" 6 times. We also heard "Play that Funky Music," "It's My Party," and other songs from the same genre over and over. There were a few times when the sound tech almost played some classic rock but would cut off the song after a few seconds and go back to the other songs, which he'd already played several times.
The crowd thickened after 4 PM, when the gates closed and the festival started to charge admission. The crowd was about 300 hundred strong, however, and stayed that way throughout the night. Dawn and I held out until after 8:30 PM, and then we packed up. Other vendors were packing up, too, even though we were supposed to stay until midnight that night. We had no plans to return on Sunday.
The entire weekend had been one big disappointment, and it had been exhausting, too. My canopy suffered the worst. Before the festival, the canopy had been broken in one spot for months; one of the cross bars had snapped. While setting it up on Friday afternoon, a second cross bar snapped. I fixed them both with duct tape, but I forgot to cut off the duct tape on Saturday evening. As a result, another bar snapped while we were taking down the canopy.
The canopy is 5 years old. It wasn't in good shape before the Sugar Cane Festival, but now I worried that it may not even be usable anymore.
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