Setting Up A Booth For A Festival

The first thing we do when we get to a festival is find our designated spot.  Then we start hauling all our stuff to the site.  We have tables, tent, jewelry displays, sign, and other things needed to make sales during the day.  Oh, and a cooler with some drinks and food.  (Food can be expensive at the fairs and festivals, so we try to bring our own).  The above shots were taken early in the morning when we were at San Clemente for their annual beach festival.

In the picture above you can see the festival tents down on the beach where they will hold races, surfing contests and more.  The vendors, like us are up on a bluff overlooking the beach - really a perfect place.

Here are a set of pictures showing Steve setting up the tent and securing it to construction bricks.  We have found that one needs to have weights to attach to the tent legs to hold the tent securely in place.  You never know when a strong wind might come up and want to blow the tent away - especially at the beach.

After we get the tent up and the tables in place, we set out the jewelry.  Placing the jewelry and displays takes some time and we are always changing where we put things depending on table placement.  So we find it takes about 2 hours to set up everything - tent to jewelry.

After we are all set up, then it is time to check out the other vendors or get coffee or just walk around as we'll be stuck in the tent once the people start coming.

Art fairs and festivals are a lot of work - setting up and tearing down after the show - packing and hauling, but they can be lots of fun too.  The advantages of going to festivals is that one can show your work, get known by people, pass out cards with your business numbers and websites and of course, sell the jewelry.  I like to think of ourselves as jewelry gypsies.  Here are a couple pictures of some of our new sea glass jewelry pieces.

Quartzsite - Rock and Gem Show

We just spent two days in Quartzsite, Arizona - a dusty, flat place that has for most of the year a population of about 200 people, but in January of each year it becomes the third largest city in Arizona. January is when vendors from all over the world descend on Quartzsite to sell their wares which range from beads to bananas. There are three venues, one right in Quartzsite on the main street behind a huge metal building called Gem World, then if you go down the street and cross over the over pass you'll find two more venues which are so big all you see are tents for miles. The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells. We were looking for beads and jewels to use with our sea glass for necklaces and bracelets. There were so many bead sellers our heads were on swivels - looking, looking, looking.


There were tents and awnings and booths and some metal buildings for the big sellers. There were people selling giant slabs of rocks, crystals, marble. There were tool sellers, fashions, roots, nuts, silk, tribal treasures, jewelry, opals, paintings and more. And in the middle of all the aisles, there were food vendors selling all those greasy and inviting foods with thousands of calories like corn dogs, home made potato chips, carmel corn, burgers, lemonades, and everything fried you can imagine. We had hot dogs and fried onion rings and French fries and a stomach about 20 minutes later. When we went back the second day, we had sandwiches from a deli before hitting the vendor area. Here's Steve with a corn dog for breakfast that first day. Later, he ate a burger. What can I say? Men are always hungry.

The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells and they have had this event for 32 years at Quartzsite. Some of the events there are as follows, just in case you want to venture over there - Rock and Gem Show - January 1-10; Sell-A-Rama - January 15-24; Art & Craft Fair - January 29-February 7, 2010. If you want to visit or even sell next year you can contact the promoters at tysonwells@tds.net.

Across the highway is another venue called Rice. We didn't get over there. Shoot, two days and we didn't even see all of Tyson Wells. It was fun and exhausting and dusty. Quartzsite is the desert so it is dusty and in this area very stark. We found wonderful beads, crystals, turquoise, glass beads and more so the two day trips were a success. A two hour drive from Palm Springs so another two hours to get back home each day which was tiring. You're probably thinking why not stay over night? There is no place to stay in Quartzsite unless you have a tent or RV. We saw hundreds of trailers, rvs, tents and camping sites all full of people. But we don't camp or trailer so that's why we did the drive each day. Just a few of the beads we picked up. If you work with beads and semi-precious stones, you'll want to go to the event next year - it truly is amazing. And the prices are so low compared to sites on the internet or those large catalogue companies. Great deals and savings.

This last shot is of us - two sisters tired yet still smiling at the end of the day shopping in Quartzsite.

We love making sea glass jewelry and finding natural stones and crystals and beads to use in our necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Here are a few shots of pieces we've created with some of our finds.

Please visit our website on Etsy to purchase Sea Glass jewelry hand made by Sisters Jewelry Design - http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/