Re-Cap of the Fair

I have blogged about the fun adventures, and misadventures that we had on our trip to New England, but I haven't said much about our time at the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair.

Overall it was a good event. Our sales were a little ahead of last year. Jeff and I both had family and friends visit us at the fair. They were people that we would not have been able to connect with if it wasn't for them coming to the show.

One of my favorite visitors was my great nephew Weston, who also came along with his mother, my brother's oldest daughter Brooke. He is a very active and expressive 1 1/2 year old! Our booth was across from the upper lodge of the ski area and we were able to have lunch together on the patio.

Jeff and I always laugh that to many in NH, hamburgers and hot dogs are called barbecue. They did at least have a brisket sandwich on the menu. The food is actually quite good. We typically bring our own lunch everyday and treat ourselves to either one breakfast or lunch during our time there.

Getting to the show this year was a struggle. We had so much going on at home that we hated to leave. The day before we left we unloaded a kiln and had to pack and ship most of it's contents. We also knew that leaving was going to put us a little behind in production for the next round of orders that are due at the beginning of September.

Then there was the garden. Jeff worked so hard all Spring and Summer, and we knew that a lot of the veggies would  be ripe for picking while we were gone.

All of these things, along with some changes to the show and management, helped us make the decision that we are definitely not doing the show next year. We need a break... and it might be permanent. We actually sold our booth rug to another booth holder that was moving into the show on the night we were packing up! There had been a lot of rain and their space was muddy and they didn't have a rug. Problem solved... they were happy and we didn't have to pack it up.

This year the attendance at the fair was down most every day. Could it be because the gate fee was increased to $15? I think it definitely had an affect. At $15 you don't even get to come for two days. A second day is an additional $5. This is a big show and it really takes two days if you want to see and do everything. There also were some "guest" craftsmen that were not juried members. That totally blew my mind since I lost my juried member status when we moved. Jeff was grandfathered in. I am no longer eligible to participate as a booth holder. We take Jeff's work to the show. I am allowed to help with a percentage of it's creation. There were also rumors that the booth fees will increase next year. Our booth fee is around $800 for four days. A nine day booth, I believe is close to $1600. This is for a 10' space. Corners and large booths are more.

It's a little scary to stop doing a show that has become part of your life for so many years. We have had good sales the last three years, but many years of poor to mediocre sales as well. I guess I would rather go out on a high note. Next year we will take some time, perhaps in the Fall, and take a road trip to visit our family and friends... and we won't have to pull a trailer, YAY!

August in New Hampshire

August started out with a whirlwind of activity. We fired the kiln twice in one week and quickly sanded, priced, and packed it all for the road trip to New Hampshire and the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair. The good friend that we have always stayed with during the fair moved to Connecticut in the Spring, which meant we had to make a decision on accommodations. We settled on renting a tiny cabin at a campground in nearby Newport, NH. 

We had a half bath for convenience, and the campground showers were nearby and clean. It worked out well for us. Renting a place to stay was an added expense, but thankfully we did well at the show and covered the cost. It was sort of fun to come back to at night, grill some dinner, and eat on the little porch.

On the road between the campground and the fair is a pick your own blueberry farm. Jeff and I took some time one evening and picked four pounds of blueberries. The branches were heavy with berries and it took us about fifteen minutes to fill our pail.

The weather has been great, just one rainy day. Nights in the 50's and most days hovered around 70. The show is over and we are now in Wolfeboro, NH, visiting my sister and her family for a few days. It was nice to have a day off today. I think it's the first on in over a month!

Recap of the Big Show

Another year at the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair is behind us. After the abysmal show of last year we had to rethink our strategy and our set up. When you couple poor sales with breaking down and packing a booth in the rain in two hours (a booth that took two days to build) your spirit and body are feeling broken. When applications for 2016 were due last fall, we decided to pay extra for a corner booth. The decision was also made to skip building the wood walls with attached pedestals and shelves. This would make set up a breeze and break down in two hours much less stressful.

The booth mimicked our set up at the Celebration of Seagrove Potters show. Our tent frame with the top removed, defined our space and allowed us to hang our lights with zip strips. We hung our tent walls in the back and covered them with inexpensive sheers from IKEA to soften the look. No need for spendy curtain rods, conduit from the hardware store is 10' and costs only a few dollars. Our table covers were purchased from an online supplier. They are only about $12 a piece and have velcro on one end to access hidden storage underneath. This show juries your booth each year. Your score can do three things:

1. Win you an award which will reduce your booth fee by $275 the next year
2. The higher your ranking, the better your chance of receiving your first choice in booth placement.
3. If your booth totally sucks, you receive an "needs improvement" warning. If your booth isn't better the next year, you won't be able to participate in subsequent fairs.

Overall, we were happy with our booth. The jury process is subjective, so who knows what the score will be. When you are working in a small space for four days you quickly learn what you need to change. This is our plan for next year:

1. Purchase a rug or ground cover. We are considering a tarp like cover that looks like an industrial carpet. It's made specifically for trade shows. It's easy to roll up and not too heavy. Our booth neighbor had one and it looked good. Since we used tables with cream colored covers, the bottoms of our covers got dirty VERY quickly. A ground cover would help eliminate that.

2. Attach some extra velcro to our covers to keep them hanging straighter. I was constantly adjusting them.

3. Place a piece of plexiglass over the end of the table that we use for wrapping pots. Even though we are under a "circus" tent, we are still in an outdoor environment. By Tuesday it was looking a little dirty.

The most important thing that happened this year is that we made money. Probably our best 4 day fair week ever. Jeff and I attribute the better sales to bringing just three color schemes of work, and having a corner booth. The corner really gave us much more visibility on the days that the fair was very crowded.

When we pack out mid-week I always enjoy the quietness of the fair. There are only a handful of us that split the week in half (it's a nine day show), so there only one or two booths in each tent that are tearing down or setting up. The grounds look so different when the sun is setting and the crowds are gone.

The pots were packed and the booth was down by 7:00 pm. Just in time for the woodworker, who was taking our space, to set up her booth. We moved everything to the outside of the tent and packed the trailer. At 8:55 pm we were back on the highway.

Exhausted, but pleased with our time at the fair.

Kid's at the Fair

 One of the cool things about the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair are the booths for kids. Children of juried members have their own sales booth called "The Next Generation Crafts". The kids sell their crafts and also do demos throughout the week. This year I bought some super soft cotton tie-dyed socks, a pair for me and a pair for my little great niece.

   

My friend Wendy is teaching classes at the "Pottery School" tent all week.

Mark Ragonese works with the kids to build outdoor sculptures of rocks and limbs. It's an exhibit that changes everyday! He also has big a stump out there that the kids can practice hammering nails into and then removing them with the claw end of the hammer. Endless fun.

Today is our last day at the fair. I am not looking forward to tearing down the booth. We have two hours to get it out of the tent so that the next guy can start setting up at 7:00pm. Basically we pack the pots, take apart the booth, move it outside the tent, then load the trailer. I expect we will be back here at the Bow Lake around 11:30.
It's 8:30 am and I am tired just thinking about it!

League of NH Craftsmen's Fair 2014 - Day One

Jeff and I had a great trip north. We actually left on time on Wednesday, drove a little over 8 hours that first day and arrived at Mt. Sunapee Resort in Newbury, NH a little after 2:30 pm on Thursday. The booth walls, pedestals, and lights, were up in about four hours. I think it was a record for us! Friday was spent securing shelves and unpacking pots.

We are really pleased with the booth this year. The freshly painted walls and additional lighting make a big difference. The fair limits wattage per booth. We are slowly switching to LED lights which gives us more lights at lower wattage. They are expensive up front, but worth it in the long run.
The fair attendance seemed up from the first day last year. I will know for sure tomorrow when they give us the daily stats. I am quite certain our sales were up. Lots of people spend two days at the show (there are 350 craftspeople) and in the past, Sunday has been better for us than Saturday.
and did I mention the weather? In the 70's and super comfortable... tonight I had to put on a hoodie.

Sculpture Garden

 One of my favorite things at the League of NH Craftsmen Fair is the sculpture garden...

 Joe DeRobertis's Dragon Fly was the most popular sculpture in the exhibition. His metal work is amazing. My favorite bracelet was made by him... a little sculpture for your wrist.

I really liked this family sculpture and I can't even remember who the artist is. I believe he is a newly juried member.

 Ceramic Bells

 View from the sculpture garden to the newly juried members tent

It feels good to be home at last. Two weeks is along time for a homebody to be away. I am feeling anxious to get back to the clay side of this business.

Booth Neighbors

When you do a nine day show you get to know your booth neighbors quite well...

 Next door to us was Lee Spiller. We already had a couple of his vases at home and this year we added two more to the collection.

 We think hauling pottery to shows is heavy, can you imagine lugging all these stones? On the plus side, they aren't breakable!

Our across the aisle neighbor for the 2nd year in a row was Sarah Heimann...

 The details on her carved pots is amazing. If you click on the photo above you may be able to see that the knob on the right is a vacuum cleaner and on the left is dresser!

A bonus for the week was having the opportunity to see a sink that Jeff made for a good friend that lives in the Sunapee area. He hadn't seen it installed...

Do you see where Jeff set his beer down to take the photo? I guess we won't be using this photo for advertising!
Ha, ha, ha, I just enlarged the photo and it wasn't his beer... it was a bottle of hand lotion that must have been on the countertop!

Look who I met at the fair today...

It's Suzie, aka Smartcat!!!!!

Oh what fun to meet blogger buddies in person. Suzie has family in NH and has made the League of NH Craftsmen Fair a near annual visit. I think we could have talked for hours, if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to be selling pots! She is planning to return one more day to the fair (it's way too big to take it all in in one day) and I hope that we get more time to visit. I still need to have my annual fair ice cream (or two!) so maybe she will join me, and we will have more time to chat.

... in business news, sales picked up a lot today with the cooler weather settling in. We are confident it will continue. In between selling pots, we are having fun catching up with all of our artist/crafter friends. I truly love North Carolina, but it does feel good to be "home".

and now the fun begins!

The hardest work is over, the booth is built, the pots are on shelves, and we were ready for customers when two craftsmen blew the traditional horns at 10:00 this morning.

Wouldn't you know it was a hot day on the Mountain (still not as humid as NC) and the crowds were thinner than usual.

We still had a good day. A visit from extended family that I hadn't seen in years made it extra special. AND... I met blogger buddy Gary Rith's good friend, and newly juried League of NH Craftsmen, member... Michael Gibbons!

This is Michael's first year doing the Craftsmen's Fair and his booth looks great. We are in the same tent and our booths back up to each other.

Day one is done. Eight more to go. Looking forward to a visit from Smartcat!

we are back in the '603!

We always get on the road later than planned, so why would this trip be any different? We left Seagrove around 5:30 on Wednesday, drove to as far as somewhere in PA and slept for a few hours. Around 5:30 pm we arrived at Mt. Sunapee Resort in NH. The great thing about this show is that they give you quite a bit of time to set up. We unloaded the trailer and got the walls of the booth up by 8:30 pm. We could have stayed all night to set up if we wanted to, but we were exhausted, and needed to check in with the folks we are staying with (more on that in another post).

This is about as far as we got on Thursday night...

We worked from 9:30 until 4:00 today, leveling the walls (the joys of an outdoor show), and touching up paint that got nicked up during the trip. At 4:00 we needed to quit and get ready for the annual Living with Craft Exhibition Awards. I somehow was asked to present the NH Potters Guild best in Ceramics Awards... which meant having to clean up and look presentable for a swanky wine and cheese affair.
The gates open at 10:00 in the morning... the first of NINE days, smiling and selling pots... we plan to be there at 8:00 am to finish getting those pots on the shelf... and right now, I am enjoying a glass of wine, and the fact that the room is cool with only a fan running. I wish we could spend the month of August in NH, and the rest of the year in beautiful North Carolina.

let's do the math

Mr. Young commented on my last post, asking how many pots fit into our little gas kiln. It just so happens that we do, on occasion count the pots. So I actually have an answer for him today.

The total number of pots in this firing was 74. The retail value of this kiln load is approximately $2000+/-. 

The goal we set for the LNHC show at Mt. Sunapee in NH is $10,000. Simple math says we need a minimum of five firings for show inventory. We have done three in the last two weeks and we will fire once more, although we are not sure it will be cool enough to pack up for Wednesday! Aside from these three firings, we have inventory fired over the last couple of months to bring with us as well. If there is anything left after the nine days on the mountain, it will go to galleries in NH... we are planning to come home with an empty trailer!

These are a couple of Jeff's that were my favorites from this kiln....

 Textured bowl with nuka and gloss green

Platter with ash glaze, there were two of these and they both are beauties.

Time to get to work. This kiln load needs to be sanded, priced, and boxed. 4 days till departure.

this is our reality.

Our deadline for the League of NH Craftsmen Fair at Mt. Sunapee Resort is looming. We have pots growing all over the yard, trying very hard to dry in this humidity, and get into the bisque kiln tomorrow...

 Not a single spot is spared, not even the giant trash receptacle...

or the two outdoor grills...

pots even grow in the garden here...

 then there are the pots that are getting glazed...

and a kiln to be unloaded... and loaded again to be fired once more before we leave on August first.

aside from the pots, we grow tomatoes too.

 after all, we do have to eat.