The Old Town Bowie Antique craft and food truck festival show was on May 5 and I was there as a vendor. So here's the skinny!
For starters this event was unorganized.
All the streets were blocked and no one seemed to know how to give accurate
instructions on how to get to your booth. So after driving around for 30 minutes we
finally managed to get someone to direct us to our spot. Imagine a small road
with vendors on either side setting up and a narrow passage way to which vendors were instructed to drive down and unload. We used the truck so this was a tight
squeeze. Apparently an email was sent out with a staggered set up schedule but I guess no one got it ( including me) because it was chaotic. Once we finally got to our spot, someone had already set up shop. So we wait and wait, finally after waiting 20 minutes for that problem to solved we set up and the festival starts. By now i'm thoroughly irritated and ready to just turn around and go home. but.... I'm optimistic it will get better. LOL! The event starts, now the name of the event is Old
Town Bowie Antique craft and food truck festival. However
the vendors were split into two sections separated by a bridge and maybe a road.
One section was lucky enough to have all the food vendors while the other (my
section had nothing) In order for us to get food we had to walk all the way to
the other side of the event to find food. This was not just a straight walk down
the road. The vendors in my section couldn't even see the vendors or food
trucks on the other side. You couldn't smell the food either. If it hadn't been
advertised then we would have never even known that the food trucks were there or that there were more vendors.
I personally looked forward to eating while I watch the steady but very slow foot
traffic walk by like we weren't even there. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to
make my money back but I don’t consider that a success. I personally consider a
success 4-5x the show fee. In fact, I think that if Mother’s Day and Graduation
weren't around the corner I wouldn't have made the show fee back. I know many vendors didn't make a dime.
From what I understand this is
the first year that the event was taken over by someone else. The returning
vendors said that last year both the spring and fall shows were awesome and
that’s why they returned. However this year was a huge disappointment to many.
I've never vended at this show but can honestly say I will probably never
attend this show again. It could have been so much better with a little more organization and planning.
If they had a better set up plan and instructions on where to go instead of a
bunch of blocked off streets and people who didn't have a clue that would have
been great. When you are limited on space it's good to have a predesignated off loading point. Especially since there was a parking lot right down the hill. Many vendors use this lot to pack up. Second, to be fair the food trucks should be available on both
sides of the event. Vendors and shoppers should not have to walk all the way to
the other side to find food. The food was supposed to be one of the main focal points of the event yet for my side it was non existent. Many of my customers asked where all the food
trucks were. As far as the traffic and sales, I don’t know. I guess it just one
of those hit or miss kind of things. Although several people did tell me they
had no idea the festival was even going on.
