The first fete I do is at my local Primary School where I also work at lunchtimes. I think this helps as the children know me and as I've been doing the Summer fete and the Christmas Fair too they know I'll be there! As mentioned in my previous post, I always have plenty of children's jewellery and reasonably priced items. We sold a staggering 140+ of the little seed bead bracelets and 5 of those hair clip bead strands - Rebecca was a bit disappinted we didn't sell more of them as she thought they'd be snapped up. Over all, we did really well here and also got a booking for a 'girls night in' jewellery shop at home party.
The next day we were at the Friends of Caterham Dene Hospital fete, which is only a couple of miles away. There were quite a lot of stalls there this year, mostly charity ones as that's the kind of fete it is. Unfortunately the four jewellery sellers were placed in very close proximity to each other! Mind you, I don't think it made much difference as no one seemed to be buying - or even looking - we watched so many people walk down the aisle of stalls without even glancing either way. I know we're in a recession, but to not even look at what stalls there were seemed a bit strange to me. With people like that it wasn't surprising we only sold 5 things the whole time we were there and made a loss as the stall was pretty expensive - ah well, at least it was for charity and we know now to visit it as customers next year! Look at our happy smiling faces - this was before the fete started!
Yesterday we were at a Girls' secondary school nearby. By Friday I had almost decided not to go as the rain had been so torrential all week and the fair was on the school field. However, the weather forecast looked pretty good so I thought we might as well give it a go as girls=jewellery! Or so I thought...
Again, it wasn't great. The pupils of the school were all there, but seemed to be working on their own class stalls so there weren't that many of them wandering around. Our stall was on the far side of the field in the corner, so we got the most of the wind, which resulted in some of the displays falling over on a regular basis! We put the side up of the gazebo which helped a bit. In the end we made a very small profit, but if you factor in the time we spent there and the time it takes to make the jewellery, plus the £10 I gave to my glamourous assistant then it was actually a loss!
So guess what fete we'll be doing again next year and which ones we won't! I don't think I'll bother trying to find any alternatives to do, I'll just use that time to make more website stock. In the warm and dry and non-windy house!
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