This past weekend I was at the MacKenzie-Childs Artisan Craft Festival in Aurora NY. It was their first time holding this festival, but I hope that they decide to continue. There were great crowds both Friday and Saturday. Sunday was a little slower, but still had a good number of people.

This was my first show that was out of state and required staying at a place overnight. So what did I learn? First, MacKenzie-Childs puts on a really good show. Starting with the drop off which was really well organized with time slots. We got the booth "empty" setup on Thursday afternoon.


This is my setup from Friday. I am still loving the shelves that Craig built for me. It enables me to display the more artsy items separate from the more tactical items in my booth.




The shelves work really well. My one complaint of them is that he intentionally made it so that the biggest shelf was on the bottom. That means that I can't display some of my pieces like the lemon plates at eye level. I'm not sure it matters though as peopel did come in and interact with the shelves at just about every level.




On the right side of my booth is more tactical items like the mugs and some smaller plates. It has been interesting finding the balance between having enough variety out for people to see vs not making things too cluttered. I ended up setting up slightly differently each day. Also during the day I'd move things around. It's the first time I've really done that and I think it worked well.




I didn't realize how dark this picture came out with the light behind it. I should have taken it later in the day. I had a new jewelry setup for this show. I still didn't sell a lot of jewelry. I'm not sure if that's because I still don't have it displayed well or if people just think ceramic jewelry is too heave or people don't like my jewelry or if it's the display. Going to have to do more research on this one.
Speaking of research, I have a clipboard of what I have and then as I make sales I record what I've sold. You know when that's difficult to do- when there is a line of people waiting to buy stuff. I mean, it's great to have a line of people wanting to buy my stuff, but it was also stressful.




There was a gentleman in the next tent selling felt flowers. You could go into his booth and make your own bouquet. I always mean to have fresh flowers in my vases to show off what they are, but never have the time. Leaph Boutique was the perfect solution to this. Now I'll always have flowers, he even styled them for me.




Part of the expense of the weekend was because we rented a house so we could bring the dogs with us. It's just a really expensive area. Willow approved though.




The view from the house was also amazing.




All in all this was a great experience. I do hope that MacKenzie-Childs decides to make this an annual event. I don't know that I want to do other out of town events, but I would strongly consider doing this one again next year.