Being here
Jun. 16th, 2015 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrThe story you're about to hear is true. The names (and products) have been changed… you get the idea.
We never know who our neighbors will be at Saturday Market. Both booths are reserved, but the reserve vendors aren't always there, so the booths go into the lottery. Whoever has the most points can claim the space for the day.
On a recent weekend, our neighbor was a relatively new vendor--I think this is their second year. They make an interesting product, one that attracts a lot of attention. People literally cannot walk by without interacting with the work.
They also have quite a lot of it. Booth is full. There's no room in there for the vendor, so they sit on the sidewalk at the curb, about six feet away.
This works fine in the morning, when it's cool, but by lunchtime it's starting to broil on the pavement, so the vendor moved their chair to the other side of the street, where the building's shadow covers the parked cars and a few feet into the traffic lane. I've noticed several vendors on our block taking to the shade there in the afternoon, and I'm sure that's why our neighbor did.
Thing is, I think it was a really bad idea. When they were sitting at the curb, they could interact with shoppers, talk about their work, work the contact. I can't count the number of times people stopped to play with the art, they got up from their chair across the street and started forward, and the customer walked away before they got there. Dozens of times they came halfway across the street, only to turn around and sit down again.
Now the neighbor didn't actually sell that badly. At the end of the day, they told me they'd sold six [lower end product]s and one [high end item]. They considered it a successful day.
But I can't help wonder how much more successful it might have been had they been there to talk to people, give them a personal contact to go with an engaging product. Maybe they wouldn't have sold anything more that day, but they would have had a lot more people primed with the idea of coming back again.
So I guess the moral I take from this is, make room for yourself in your booth. If it means you display a little less art, that's okay. Be choosy. Take a few items down; store duplicates and restock out of sight. But be there. People want to experience the artist, as well as the art.
We never know who our neighbors will be at Saturday Market. Both booths are reserved, but the reserve vendors aren't always there, so the booths go into the lottery. Whoever has the most points can claim the space for the day.
On a recent weekend, our neighbor was a relatively new vendor--I think this is their second year. They make an interesting product, one that attracts a lot of attention. People literally cannot walk by without interacting with the work.
They also have quite a lot of it. Booth is full. There's no room in there for the vendor, so they sit on the sidewalk at the curb, about six feet away.
This works fine in the morning, when it's cool, but by lunchtime it's starting to broil on the pavement, so the vendor moved their chair to the other side of the street, where the building's shadow covers the parked cars and a few feet into the traffic lane. I've noticed several vendors on our block taking to the shade there in the afternoon, and I'm sure that's why our neighbor did.
Thing is, I think it was a really bad idea. When they were sitting at the curb, they could interact with shoppers, talk about their work, work the contact. I can't count the number of times people stopped to play with the art, they got up from their chair across the street and started forward, and the customer walked away before they got there. Dozens of times they came halfway across the street, only to turn around and sit down again.
Now the neighbor didn't actually sell that badly. At the end of the day, they told me they'd sold six [lower end product]s and one [high end item]. They considered it a successful day.
But I can't help wonder how much more successful it might have been had they been there to talk to people, give them a personal contact to go with an engaging product. Maybe they wouldn't have sold anything more that day, but they would have had a lot more people primed with the idea of coming back again.
So I guess the moral I take from this is, make room for yourself in your booth. If it means you display a little less art, that's okay. Be choosy. Take a few items down; store duplicates and restock out of sight. But be there. People want to experience the artist, as well as the art.