An opportunity came our way from our friends at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market in Oliver, BC last month. Both George and I have a history with that venue that goes back well over a year. We vended there once in April and saw potential for regular dates but held off until our summer season got underway. Well, this opportunity changed that.
As we have been vending all Summer at the OK Falls Community & Farmers Market on Sundays in Okanagan Falls, BC, it left Saturdays open for other dates. The opportunity from Oliver fell right into that slot for us so, we jumped at it with great anticipation. We knew in advance where our ‘booth’ would be and couldn’t wait to get there.
So the Saturday of this weekend saw us in Oliver from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. It was a good day for us with a high volume of foot traffic entering the ‘yellow room’ where we were located. One thing we noticed was that people were taking their time looking over the different racks of products in the room with us. It kept them in the room longer.
By the end of the day we had sold more than we did in the same venue (in a different spot) back in April. What makes this opportunity interesting is that I committed JamBusters! to be there for a total of four Saturdays to run to the end of the OK Falls summer vending season. Well, George and I decided that we should book some more dates and we did.
We will be in Oliver at the Indoor Flea Market in October, November, December and longer. We just really enjoyed the ‘fit’ and even had customers from our April date come back for more of our product. Plus, the other vendors in the room we were in were great! We all hit it off and enjoyed visiting with each other when customers were not present.
But that’s just half of the weekend!
Today (August 13) was our 9th Sunday this season in OK Falls. That Summer market runs 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM and goes for a total of 12 weeks. The past two Sundays there have been phenomenal. Today was just as good. George was saying it was almost as if finally the market there was starting to take off. The down side was that there were not a lot of vendors there today.
Regardless, we will be vending at both Oliver and OK Falls for the next three weekends and then we launch into our September events which will include the Princeton Fall Fair, Similkameen Sizzle in Keremeos, BC and the Garlic Festival in Lower Nicola, BC. We plan to take a short holiday after that event and then start going back to Oliver in October.
Today’s market was our 20th vending date of 2017 and so far this year we have been to seven different venues in five different communities. George figures that by year end we will have vended JamBusters! over 40 dates which is well over the 24 dates we did in 2016. You could say we have found a pastime that both of us really enjoys!