Mill Creek Festival 2010

This Monday finds me exhausted from a long weekend (and a previous week with an aggravated herniated disk), a little excited as I have two weeks ahead of me where I'll have a break from the kids (they will be visiting their grandparents in California) and a bit sad (it's the first time I'll be away from them).

But, I'm hoping that these couple weeks will help me get caught up on some things that just keep falling off the list of priorities and let me get a little, much needed, R&R.

So, here's the weekend recap. I love the Mill Creek Festival for many reasons. 1 - it's close to home, just a 5-10 minute drive across the freeway. 2 - it's run by some really nice people and they have always add a personal touch... coming by several times a day to make sure everything is okay, taking a picture of you in your booth (which they later send with a thank you) and even sending volunteers around to ask if you need water or anything. And they have a ton of teens available at the end to help you load up. And 3 - we often do very well.

This year wasn't our best year as far as sales... but it also wasn't horrible. There are several things that could have contributed. They moved the festival location this year - although, I don't think this was a factor in our lower sales as there still seemed to be plenty of foot traffic. We were located at the end of the street and there was really no other reason to bring people down our way. Most people turned about three booths from the end to see the Pet Plaza which is a popular feature every year. I believe this was a big reason for the decline in our sales.


But we still had a great time. We had our bag of Reese's Pieces to get us through each day (yum) and we had fun people watching (how cute is that little baby hanging out of that tiny little wagon - can you call that a wagon?).

This was our first double booth... and I loved it! I was able to take two shops and not feel like they were crowded. Thanks to Marlo (IMakeCuteStuff) for letting me borrow her canopy. I wasn't sure how the double booth would work out, so it was nice to not have to invest in another one. Each booth had plenty of room for browsing (people were able to get wheelchairs and strollers into the booth), we had lots of room to display all of our merchandise so that it could be seen and the two shops looked cohesive (in my opinion). It looked professional enough that many people asked if we had a brick and morter store.

NueToMe:

World of Whimm:

In the center of the two booths, we had an area (about 4 ft x 6 ft) for us to store our personal items, take a break and for the kids to hang out in. It was a nice area to have put aside as it also sheltered us from the wind. We had great weather, however, not only was our booth at the end of the street, it was also in the shade. I wore a jacket the entire weekend - and I believe the tempurature was in the mid 70's.

This is my daughter taking it into her own hands to get people into our booth. She decided to stand out in front of the booth and show off the super hero costume. So cute and so sweet.

Later this week, I'll share some of the new features of my display as there are many. Too much for one post (and I'm hungry for breakfast :)). All in all, a good weekend. And even though we had less sales, this festival has proven in the past to give us business several months following it. We handed out many cards and show schedule flyers (I was proactive enough to print up a schedule of the shows we have coming up).

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