Metrowest Craft Fair 2014
Saturday, September 20th, 2014
We’ve been doing this one for a while – I did a video for this event as a “typical craft fair” in my “How to start your own kettle corn business” ebook. Here are my blog entries for this event in 2007 and 2008 plus a silly video I did back in 2008. Did I mention I’ve been doing this event for a while?
This event is held by the Metrowest Humane Society, an organization that specializes in homeless kitties, but they’re friendly to dogs too. There were tons of critters running so it was an enjoyable day. This event is held in the same spot as the Framingham Farmers market. What’s really weird was I ended up in EXACTLY the same place for both events. (see animated GIF above) I only pay 20 bucks a day for the farmers market, but had to shell out $150 for literally the same spot in the same field. I had plenty of return farmers market customers and it ended up a pretty good profitable day – we sold over 200 bags at this event.
The big concern was the Framingham Food Truck Festival that was being held just a couple of miles down the street. They also had crafts but obviously featured more food. We were worried that that event would divert most of our customers from our field to theirs. I didn’t really notice a drop in attendance where we were. In fact, because the only “competition” was an ice cream truck and a person selling hot dogs and canoli’s, we felt that we sold more throughout the day. A bunch of people just went to this event to got kettle corn, then went to the food truck festival to get their real lunch.
I’ve mentioned this in my ebook, nobody considers kettle corn a meal, so sales typically drop off around noon. Many people keep telling me that I should sell kettle corn at the “such and such” food festival. You certainly will sell something at an event like that, but the real money happens when you’ve got the market cornered and there ISN’T too many food choices.
