The market was yesterday, February 11th and there were 17 vendors in all, but two had to cancel at the last minute due to family emergencies. I helped with the vendor layout (and some other prep work) the week before the event along with another member of the sub-committee and a couple of changes took place the morning of the event to accommodate a couple of the vendors. Otherwise, everything went rather smoothly.
George and I loaded most of the JamBusters! stock the night before as we knew we would be spending a good portion of the morning on market day directing traffic to make sure vendors found their assigned table location. George helped more than one vendor unload vehicles or carry product to the downstairs vending locations. By the time 9:30 AM arrived, all vendors were in place and customers were already arriving – and the event didn’t actually start until 10:00 AM.
The day went by fast and there was a steady flow of traffic throughout the day. There were a few vendors on the main floor of the building (where we had our booth) and nine more located in the basement. George checked on vendors frequently and even found himself manning more than one booth at times. He said everyone was pretty happy with the layout, the venue and the business. He thinks just over 200 people came through the front door.
As for me, JamBusters! went through a number of ‘try-before-you-buy’ tasting samples and had a nice day of sales. Some new products, particularly made with blueberries, were big hits as were the few items I still had in stock from my ‘boozy line’ so that was good to see that adding some traditional jam and marmalade products met with success. Of course, the hot pepper items were also very popular.
The Chamber is hoping to do these indoor markets monthly in the colder months and is looking to put together another one in March. George says there are already some vendors interested in participating. This could turn into a regular activity for the local group and it may end up giving me a reason to look at vending my products locally as well as on the road this summer.
Regardless of what happens, I really enjoyed being behind the counter again serving up samples of my products and seeing/hearing the reactions that resulted. I know I ended up making some new contacts and picking up some new customers as a result so it was well worth the time and effort helping with some of the behind the scenes work to get this market off the ground.