So the Metrowest Human Society was hosting a craft fair in the same spot we normally do our Framingham farmers market. They only wanted 60 bucks to set up, so we jumped on it. (The health department certificate was all set.) We hoped that we would get enough of our regular customers in Framingham to make this worth while. We were a little wary of doing Arts and Craft festivals from our struggles at last weeks Mattoon Arts and Crafts festival in Springfield.

We get there. It’s overcast and starting to drizzle. It doesn’t look good. We manage to sell a few bags before it’s starts to legitimately rain. We’re going, “Oh boy, this is gonna suck.” Velma and I are sitting there, getting annoyed with each other and our predicament. We had bailed on a recent Springfield farmers market because it was pouring before we even left. Now we’re thinking: ” 4 more hours of this?”

Wadda ya know…it stops raining, the sun comes out and bunches of people descend on our tent! We got close to a record day! I notice that I can “play” the crowd with my kettle. If I keep popping small batches, the smell and noise attracts customers. It seems when I lines forms, this entices others to cue up. Give ‘em some of the just popped, hot and sticky stuff and you’ve got yourself a sale.

We recently popped for two days at the Mattoon Street Arts Festival in Springfield, Massachusetts. We haven’t done too many of these kinds of shows. Normally they’re kind of tricky to get into, there’s usually the “regular kettle corn guy” who’s been doing these events for years. I always thought that kettle corn was a staple at these events. We discovered Grandpa’s Kettle Corn (our favorite OTHER kettle corn vendor) at the Wayside Inn’s arts and crafts festival in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

I guess last years event was better. We had a little drizzly rain during Saturday while our kettle refused to light. (There was a leak in the gas hose to the pilot light.) We frantically drove around Springfield looking for a replacement part and lost the first half of the day. We were also kinda stuck way in the back. The food court was off of a side street to the main event, and our tent was stuck in a driveway off of that side street.

Here’s what we’ve noticed between our regular Farmers markets gigs and these single events: our weekly farmers markets customers tend to buy multiple bags per visit and tend to stock up for the week. We hardly got any double orders during this arts and crafts show. We were also surprised to find a bunch of people who had no idea what kettle corn was. We had to do a lot more selling (giving away of free samples) to get the sales.

After two days we did just a little more business than our best single day at the Springfield Farmers market. If you subtract the $150 fee we paid to get into this event, we did below average for both days. Don’t forget, we only pay about $15 for a farmers market spot. Boy do we like our regular customers!