July 4, 2011 found us at the Ashland, Oregon Art Festival in Lithia Park. Yes, we did this festival last year. Not a big money maker, but we like the setting and the people - at least we did until this year. Or I should say, we like the people, except for one busybody vendor and a mean Music Man.
We got to the park a little late, but still early enough to unload and get the car out before the 8:00 deadline of moving the car. Drove right up to our assigned space, the same one we'd had last year, jumped out and stopped dead in our tracks. There was a scruffy young man with an odd looking modified guitar, amplifiers, tables and chairs in our space. Shirley walked up to the Music man and introduced herself, then pointed out that he was in our space - a space we'd paid for and reserved. He went into a story about how he'd traded spaces with another vendor up the line and her space was next to ours, but since we weren't there, he'd taken it upon himself to take our space. About this time, this older woman vendor-busybody comes along all smiles and cheerily tells us that she "thought" it would be fine to let the Music Man have our space.
Well, it wasn't fine with us. We wanted our space and we wanted him to move down the row to the space he'd exchanged with the busybody vendor. Well, he wasn't about to move - telling us that up the line, further into the park, there were a lot of spaces and we could go there. Everyone was getting angry. Finally, an official from the festival came and she tried to calm everyone down and offered us a two space spot further up. Shirley and I didn't want to go up the line of vendors as we wanted our spot. Steve stepped in and said, "Let's move up there." I could tell Steve was upset and he would get more upset if he had to spend the day next to the Music Man. So reluctantly, we moved our stuff up the line. In the meantime, while we were talking to the official, the Music Man slipped off and hid making it impossible to get him to move.
We got to the park a little late, but still early enough to unload and get the car out before the 8:00 deadline of moving the car. Drove right up to our assigned space, the same one we'd had last year, jumped out and stopped dead in our tracks. There was a scruffy young man with an odd looking modified guitar, amplifiers, tables and chairs in our space. Shirley walked up to the Music man and introduced herself, then pointed out that he was in our space - a space we'd paid for and reserved. He went into a story about how he'd traded spaces with another vendor up the line and her space was next to ours, but since we weren't there, he'd taken it upon himself to take our space. About this time, this older woman vendor-busybody comes along all smiles and cheerily tells us that she "thought" it would be fine to let the Music Man have our space.
Well, it wasn't fine with us. We wanted our space and we wanted him to move down the row to the space he'd exchanged with the busybody vendor. Well, he wasn't about to move - telling us that up the line, further into the park, there were a lot of spaces and we could go there. Everyone was getting angry. Finally, an official from the festival came and she tried to calm everyone down and offered us a two space spot further up. Shirley and I didn't want to go up the line of vendors as we wanted our spot. Steve stepped in and said, "Let's move up there." I could tell Steve was upset and he would get more upset if he had to spend the day next to the Music Man. So reluctantly, we moved our stuff up the line. In the meantime, while we were talking to the official, the Music Man slipped off and hid making it impossible to get him to move.
A couple of days later, we learned from a friend that they hadn't walked all the way up the line of vendors, but had turned around where we had our booth the year before. We could understand as it was a hot day and after the parade and walking up past food booths, some people in the park didn't check out all the booths. Lesson learned - don't get to the festival late - get there early to make sure no one takes your spot. (I am glad we didn't have to spend the day next to the Music Man as later when I walked by he was playing some sort of musak on his modified guitar and I'm not sure I'd classify it as music.)
Our booth ended up being across from the hat vendor - nice people who did a brisk business. We set up our tables and took up two spaces as we were assigned.
Here we are looking a bit frazzled after setting up the booth. It was early and the sun hadn't hit our side of the park at this point. Later we would wish we were still in the shade. Shirley sold some of her sea glass pendants.
And I sold some of my sea glass earrings -
So all in all, it was a good show - despite learning a hard lesson from a mean Music Man. Next, we are off to an art Festival in Bend, Oregon where we meet up with another fellowing playing and selling his music.
Please check out our store on Etsy at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ for more sea glass jewelry.
