The dark brown leather arrived Wednesday night. And then we didn't do anything with it Wednesday night.
Thursday night we made belts and packed up the bits and pieces than weren't still packed from Maidens. Ron had the trailer hooked up and out in the driveway by the time I got home, and Robin packed stuff into the truck and trailer. In the bitter cold.
Friday morning was more bitter cold. Xap had some not-horribly-serious car trouble, but made it down to our place, and off we went. IIRC we got to Pheasant Run about 9:30...
...to discover that we did not have 2 pairs of tables back-to-back, because of the way the islands were laid out. Slight juggling of people within our island later, we had a hook around one end (1 table on one long side, 2 on the other, and the end table) of the island. And then we sent three of the four tables away.
I put a wall-of-gridwall across the end, thinking we could make a walk-in section, so we could use the back of the gridwall for display. It ended up we didn't need to, which was good, as it would have gotten cramped for us otherwise. Interestingly, the Pheasant Run tables are only 24" wide - we're used to 6' and 8' tables being 30" wide.
Friday was slow. Slow slow slow slow. Friday was free entry for veterans, so there were people wandering around, mostly older gentlemen. I don't think anybody was selling much, but at least there were people to say hello to. Only 1-2 sales from noon-7 pm did not make for an exciting day. There weren't even as many vehicles in the display area as we'd expected to go admire.
We were able to leave the truck and trailer parked at Pheasant Run, so we all packed into the Kia for the trip home, with a stop at Red Robin for dinner.
Saturday hours were 9-6. Business was better, although not enough to convince us to do it again next year. I dropped a stitch in some lace knitting and had to pull back a bunch of rows to rescue it, but didn't have to completely frog my project, so I was happy. Unfortunately, I was also a zombie by the time we closed, having been awake since 3:30 am. Ordered pizza on the way home, and arrived just as the delivery guy was leaving the house. Perfect!
Sunday (10-2) was good enough that we discussed what to do differently next year.
One one side of us was a guy selling books, movies, and CDs. We got to listen to one movie over and over and over, the second DVD player got changed to different videos, and the CD player was pointing right at the center of our island and was TOO LOUD. After all Saturday of one set of military band music pieces that all sounded similar I had to listen to earworms to get the damn military band out of my head.
Sunday morning when I bought a book on German (mounted) cavalry in WWII I asked him to please keep it down. Good thing he agreed, or Betsey, the Gypsy Piper Girl (other women in our block), Xap, and I would probably have mobbed him.
Other purchases: Pattern for a Victorian-era military coat, shoulder patches, and collar pins for Ron (Girl Genius Jaeger costume). Looked at a Russian navy hat for Robin, but called home and had him try on one of Ron's hats, fit of which meant the Russian hat wasn't going to fit. Bone knotting shuttle for Xap, which she proved could be used for tatting, rather confusing the lady at William Booth, Draper. Snicker. Other things admired, no Jaeger hat found for Ron, but got ideas. Lots of junk ignored.
Probably more tomorrow, time to go do Otter bookkeeping, since I decided I had insufficient motivation to go to work between being tired and the crappy not-snow-plowing job on the roads.
Happy Bach Sing Day
56 minutes ago
It didn't come up either of the last two years, and it won't be my issue if it comes up this year, but there is a clause in the Dealers' Room agreement for Conjecture that gives the staff discretion to say that someone playing a CD (or DVD) is too loud and ask them to turn it down or off. I'm pretty sure that if one of my dealers had complained that the dealer next to them was playing audio too loud, I would have considered that as too loud and asked them to turn it down or off.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what I'd do if they refused - but I'm pretty sure I'd have had the right to refund their fees and tell them to vacate the room and con (since they'd loose their memberships with the dealer tables), and perhaps a threat of the "nuclear option" would suffice.