A view to a booth

Clayfolk has a rule unique to the pottery shows I sell at, indeed most of the art shows in general: You have to choose a different booth than last year.

At Clay Fest, I've had the same booth the entire 20 years. Anacortes keeps putting me in the same (exposed, potentially gale-tossed) booth every year, despite my pleas to move to a more sheltered spot. The Clayfolks believe shuffling booths keeps the show looking fresh. (Personally, I think it just makes it harder for my customers to find me.)

This year, I have enough points to actually have a choice of booth spaces, so I pick one along the side, under the balcony, near enough to the front to have good sight lines, but not enough to be blocked by the crowds at demo, or the mob line to checkout on Friday night. If I were the type to hang out in the balcony and watch my booth from a distance, I could look right down into it. I'm not. I'd much rather be in the booth, talking to customers and pulling out restock. Even if we're not personally selling our pots--there's centralized check-out--I still think we do better when we show up.

As usual, I'm on the busiest sales shift, so Denise does the heavy lifting Friday night. I get several customers buying over $300 in pots on my shift, and the first three customers all have work by the same potter, Peter Alsen, who does amazing animal sculptures that he then subjects to raku firing. I sell a few of my own pots, including a set of four soup bowls to a nice couple with a sleeping baby. Later I learn that Ali Clark processed a sale with three baskets of my pots: plates, casserole, serving bowls, a total of $590. No wonder Denise looks exhausted when I get off shift. The show runs 'til 9 pm Friday, after which we stumble home to our motel, foregoing supper in favor of bed.

A view from a booth

...but not enough to be blocked by the crowds at demo, or the mob line to checkout on Friday night.

This was the view from my booth for about an hour Saturday morning. These nice people are all waiting to go through the meander, out the door to the lobby, and on to a check-out station to buy their pottery. The line continued another 20 feet  or more down the aisle beyond my booth.

Wow. Just wow.

(The line actually moved pretty fast--10 to 15 minutes from getting in line to getting out the door. But they kept coming.)