The Maryland Faerie Festival, Upper Marlboro, Maryland
May 20-21, 2006

(Originally written on May 23, 2006)

I survived the long weekend as a volunteer and vendor at the 2006 Maryland Faerie Festival and I even managed to get photos of the whole thing. The good news was that I had a good time talking with people the entire weekend and it's much easier to be a saleswoman if it's a product that you've created yourself and are willing to stand behind it. The bad news was that there were more vendors than visitors and most of the visitors preferred to browse over the items in the various vendor booths than to buy those same items. In some ways it was a shame that the vendors outnumbered the visitors because the festival was bigger than last year's event.

Here is my version of events in chronological order. Last year I took my Dollfie Dream, Sakura, dressed in a fairy outfit to the first-ever Maryland Faerie Festival. The one-day event was well attended and it was a nice and laid-back event. When I decided to try selling some of my recent customized dolls and polymer clay necklaces at some upcoming events, I considered this year's Maryland Faerie Festival since I had good memories of last year's event. When I visited the official site, I found that the event had been expanded to both Saturday and Sunday and it was scheduled to be held the weekend after The Greenbelt Green Man's Festival (which I had already signed up for since vendors fees started at $20). I inquired about being a vendor at the event only to find out that the vendor fee was $150. I became concerned that the price was so steep that I would have a hard time making it back in sales so I decided to drop the idea and focus on just The Greenbelt Green Man Festival.

A few months later my husband was at this local coffeehouse when he happened to run into one of the organizers of that festival (who had posted a few flyers about the flyers in that coffeehouse) and he struck up a conversation with her and he talked about me. Well, anyway, my husband managed to introduce me to the organizer and I showed her a few of my things. I also told her that I had a hard time with paying $150 vendor fee, which was why I hadn't pursued the matter at all. She told me that if I did some volunteer work, she would waive the vendor fee for me. So I decided to go for it, even though it meant I would have to work even harder to make enough stuff to sell at two back-to-back festivals. The organizer took a look at the two Dollfie Plus dolls that I had done and she suggested finding a way of putting fairy wings on the dolls since the fairy (faerie) is the theme of the festival.

Well, anyway, I decided to make as many dolls into fairies as possible. Even though The Maryland Faerie Festival followed The Greenbelt Green Man Festival, I decided to get the fairy dolls ready in time for the first festival since fairies generally come from the same European folk tradition as the Green Man.

The big challenge was in being able to afford to customize dolls without going broke. The blank doll kits from both Volks and Obitsu generally cost around $30 per doll by the time I ordered a body and use either the default bald head (which meant I had to order a wig) or buy a separate pre-rooted hair head. It didn't matter whether I opted to use the default bald head with a wig or a pre-rooted hair head--the price was still anywhere between $15-$17. (And this was on top of the $17 nude body.) I tried to keep costs low by using Barbie dresses and I managed to save time on making fairy wings by opting to make wings from polymer clay and gluing them on the dress instead of the traditional method of sewing nylon or thin cloth around a wire armature then sewing the resulting wings on the dress.

I hit upon the idea of purchasing used Barbies from a local thrift store to convert into fairies. Each used Barbie only cost $1 so I was able to charge far less for each Barbie fairy doll than I could for one of the Asian 1/6 dolls.

Well, anyway, I went through The Greenbelt Green Man Festival only to discover that the only things of mine that sold were the Barbie fairies. I only made four Barbie fairies because I wasn't sure if they would even sell and they were a far bigger hit than I imagined. I sold all four Barbies and if I had made more before that festival, I knew I would've sold even more that weekend.

So I got ambitious and I went back to that thrift store, purchased 20 more used Barbies and proceeded to work long hours getting all 20 of them customized within three days (just in time for the Maryland Faerie Festival). Those two photos of all those Barbies stir up less-than-pleasant memories for me since I got totally stressed out trying to finish them in time.

Within the last month and a half, I attended two organizational meetings of The Maryland Faerie Festival where I helped with making giant mushrooms for people to sit on, put tiny labels on tiny vials of bubbles that promoted the upcoming festival (they were given out at other events--such as The Greenbelt Green Man Festival--for people to blow bubbles), and I even volunteered to show up both the day before and the day after the festival so I could help set up/take down decorations. I finally finished with the fairy dolls last Thursday but I didn't get much rest since I had to arrive on the festival grounds the next day to help set up. Here are a few photos of the preparations for the festival. (Click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger version open in a new window.)

I got a big kick out of the red school bus (which was use to transport all of the decorations from last year's festival) that was labeled as "Fairy Movers".

Other vendors beside myself also volunteered to help out with setting up the festival and some of them also took the time to put up their own booths in advance.

The next day was the big one. At last weekend's festival, a friend of mine from my church was also selling her handmade stuff, which is made from fused glass (a technique where two or more pieces of colored glass are placed together in a mold then fired up in a kiln). She has been selling her stuff at festivals much longer than I have so she had actual card tables and an overhead tent. (If you saw the photos I posted in my blog entry on The Greenbelt Green Man Festival, you'd know how rickety my set-up was--I had no overhead tent and I only had a folding lawn chair and two portable dinner trays.) She also has a website but it's still a work in progress, as of this writing.

My husband talked with her during last weekend's festival (I was busy staffing my own vending area at the time) and the two of them came up with an idea for this festival. Previously she was among the other crafters I had inquired about the possibility of splitting a table at The Maryland Faerie Festival so we would pay $75 or less instead of the full $150 fee and she wasn't crazy about the idea of spending even $75. (The other crafters I spoke with either had scheduling conflicts or they also balked at paying the high fee.) She found out about my deal where I volunteered instead of paying the fee and she wanted to sell stuff at the festival but she had decided to take a weekend-long class on mixing fused glass with metal that same weekend. So she and my husband came up with the idea that I would sell her stuff along with my own stuff. I would get to borrow their overhead tent, card tables, and folding chairs and I would get 10 percent of the proceeds from the sale of their stuff. It sounded like a good deal so I agreed to do it. My friend and her significant other showed up to the festival grounds to help me set up before they headed off to other places. I took a few photos of the booth before during the early hours of the festival when there weren't a lot of visitors yet. The photos show my customized dolls, a few of my polymer clay necklaces, and my friend's fused glass items (necklaces, earrings, dishes, and coasters).

The first sign of trouble came early in the morning. While my friend and I had prepared for the possibility of rain, neither one of us had prepared for wind, which struck the festival grounds the entire weekend. My Dollfie Dream was originally displayed on the table in her doll stand (I had the concept of a big fairy doll watching over the smaller fairy dolls currently on sale) but the high winds kept on knocking the doll off her stand. After being knocked off her stand for the third time by the wind in less than 30 minutes, I gave up and placed the doll in one of the folding chairs for the rest of the day.

More trouble came in the form of people who were more into window shopping than actually buying stuff. The foot traffic past the row of vendor booths where I was at was very sparse and whenever I got people to visit, many of them would say stuff like, "I'm just visiting all the booths first before I decide what to buy" and I would never see them again.

At one point, members of The Beloved Order of the Greenman, held a march throughout the entire festival grounds and they marched past each vendor booth bestowing blessings.

I hoped that the blessings from The Beloved Order of the Greenman would help turn my fortunes around but I still had a hard time selling stuff. I managed to sell a few of my thrift store Barbies-turned-into-fairy dolls along with some of my friend's things. But sales were definitely very slow. At one point I talked with a few other vendors near me and nearly all of them had the same problem with slow sales as I did. When my friend's significant other arrived at the booth late in the afternoon, he noticed the lack of people at the festival and he agreed with me that the vendors seemed to outnumber the visitors.

The wind didn't help at all. There were so many times when I had to pick up signs that had blown over, dolls that had been blown flat on the table, fused glass jewelry displays that had blown over (it was a miracle that only one glass pendant had shattered as a result) that I literally lost count. I had one visitor to my booth alert me to the fact that one of my friend's pair of earrings had somehow been carried by the wind over to a grassy patch near the booth. (Those glass earrings survived being carried aloft and dropped to the ground like that.) I saw other vendors near me who suffered the same problem.

Despite the wind, it was still nice weather so it was a mystery as to why there weren't a lot of people at the festival. A few other vendors speculated that it was because of the weather reports (which had called for possible thunderstorms) or because the first day of the festival fell on the same day as the Preakness in Baltimore (I was so involved with this festival that I didn't know about the horrible injury that happened to one of the horses that had been favored to win the Triple Crown, Barbaro, until Monday) or because one of the local megachurches located near the festival grounds had held something called The Pan-African Festival on its massive grounds. There were also grumblings among some of the vendors about how the whole festival grounds were laid out in the first place. (All the vendors were clustered together in one group off to the side near the main stage but it was possible for one to wander from the main stage to the games and storyteller areas down the hill without walking through the vendor area.) There were also rumors that the vendor areas closest to the main stage got the lion's share of the foot traffic and sales while people didn't bother with walking through the booths located further back. Whatever the reason, it was a disappointing sales day for me and several other vendors.

When my friend arrived at our booth after the first day of her class ended, she suggested that I take a break since I had been at the booth the entire day. So I decided to walk around the festival grounds with my new digital camera and got some more practice time in learning how to handle it. I managed to take these amazing shots--beginning with a few street performers who tried to keep the festival entertaining and exciting.

Here's Felix The Bubblewright blowing bubbles at a couple of young fairies

Here's the other part of the festival area down the hill from the main stage and vendors area, which included a storyteller area, a games area, and a tiny wooded area where the Fairy House and Wishing Tree were located. As you can see in the photo, there weren't a lot of people who actually went down the hill when I took that photo late in the day.

Here is the storyteller's area, complete with mushroom seats. I actually helped with making some of those mushrooms (which were created with giant buckets, large pieces of wood cut into circles, foam, and various pieces of fabric).

There were some playing in the games area.

The entrance to the wooded area where the Wishing Tree and Fairy House were located.

The path to the Wishing Tree and Fairy House was lined with tiny pocket fairies hanging in the trees.

The Fairy House.

The picnic table where people could write wishes on scraps of fabric to hang on The Wishing Tree.

A girl plays under The Wishing Tree.

A few of the wishes hanging from the branches of The Wishing Tree.

The children's activities area.

One of the vendors had this really cool car that was totally decorated with bumper stickers and paintings of fairies, mermaids, and other fantasy creatures.

Some festival attendees dressed in costumes.

One of the vendors decided to take a break behind her booth.

Located across from my vendor booth was the Devadasi booth, which sold belly dance clothes and accessories. At various times throughout the festival, the Devadasi folks tried to attract attention by holding belly dancing outside its tent.

I shopped around the other vendors and I picked up a few back issues of Fairy Magazine and this small wood block hanging that describes my husband's personality perfectly ("Damn! I'm Good!"). I also saw a few other vendors that also sold fairy dolls. One table had soft dolls (dolls made out of fabric). Another table had fairy dolls made out of polymer clay. The closest competition I had was from a doll re-paint artist who purchased Barbie dolls, wiped their original face paint, re-painted their faces, re-styled their hair, and even made outfits from organic material (like plant leaves--I don't know how she managed to preserve the plant material so they wouldn't dry out). Her Barbie dolls were priced more expensively than mine (I bought mine from a thrift store, added boiling water to tame their out-of-control hair, got rid of dirt and other scruff marks, and gave them pre-purchased Barbie outfits with polymer clay fairy wings--the only item made completely from scratch by me--glued on) and each one came with a certificate of authenticity. When I was at that booth, I saw some onlookers but I didn't see anyone buying any of her dolls.

By the end of the day, I was totally exhausted. My friends and I packed our smaller items while leaving the tent, chairs, and tables for the next day.

By the next morning I was completely stiff. Between my stiff muscles, the windy weather, and the lack of sales, I felt very tempted to blow off the second day. But I was sharing the booth with my friend and I promised the festival organizers that I would not only work both days but I would also help with taking down stuff once the festival ended. So I forced myself to get out of bed and head back down to the festival for the second day. All along I hoped that Sunday would be a better day sales-wise than Saturday was.

While I was setting up for the second day, I managed to take a few shots of the ponies that were used for the pony rides attraction. It was a good thing I took those shots in the morning because the people in charge of the pony rides had packed up the ponies and left the festival by 3 p.m. (I guess they must've been so frustrated by the slow sales that they didn't want to stick around until the 6 p.m. closing time.)

My friend and I did some revision of our booth layout due to the windy conditions (it was still windy on Sunday). I also laid out my dolls and necklaces a little differently based on how people actually walked through our booth yesterday. I realized that no one noticed my polymer clay necklaces so I thought it was because they simply got lost among the shuffle of dolls so I moved all of my necklaces from one of the tables to hanging them on a cork bulletin board I had purchased at Staples. (The necklaces got more attention than they did the previous day but I still didn't sell any of them.) I managed to place a folding chair and one of my friend's storage boxes in front of the board to keep it holding upright against the wind. (It actually worked until the end of the day when a very heavy wind gust knocked the whole thing down.) I placed my Dollfie Dream in the folding chair once again because it was just too windy to put her in the doll stand. My friend managed to arrange the displays on her side so they wouldn't fall over as often. (It worked until the end of the day when the wind gusts got more intense.) I initially had my own signs standing up until the wind knocked them over so many times that I became frustrated and opted to leave my signs lying on the table. The only real hassle on the second day was that I had to constantly fix my doll display because the wind kept on knocking my dolls flat on their backs.

The weather was even more uncooperative than yesterday and I noticed that there were even fewer visitors than the previous day. (And the previous day didn't have many visitors to begin with.) I managed to take advantage of the low number of visitors to take a break from my booth to do things like go to the privies (which consisted of a bunch of port-a-johns), buy some more soda and snacks, and take photos of some of the whimsical signs and costumes I saw.

One of the staffers from the Devadasi vendor booth did a belly dance performance as the first act of the morning on the main stage.

By noon, members of The Beloved Order of the Greenman staged a dance around the maypole before starting a parade where they carried the maypole throughout the festival grounds. They were followed by a bagpipe player and a bunch of parade participants--some dressed in street clothes while others dressed in a variety of costumes. The parade managed to wind its way past my booth and I got a few more visitors as a result. I managed to sell a few of the Barbie dolls and some of my friend's stuff but sales were just as slow as the previous day.

The Devadasi booth near my booth also didn't have many visitors and there were times when the workers at that booth would stand around and chat. There were also times when they would hold belly dance sessions outside the tent in order to get people's attention (and hopefully translate that into more visits inside the tent and more sales).

I also had various performers come by in costume, such as a boy walking on top of a giant ball, a person dressed as a dragon, and a few jugglers (some of whom were walking on stilts).

The first big weather challenge came around 1 p.m. when this giant dark cloud began to cover the entire area. The temperature abruptly dropped and I ended up putting on my hooded sweatshirt. Then the wind began to kick up and I began to dread the possibility of a thundershower. I saw even less people during the period of the giant dark cloud and I think that many people decided that a thunderstorm was about to start so they left. I decided that I needed to prepare for the worst so I began to pull my suitcase and some of the folding chairs under the tent and I braced myself for the moment that the first raindrop fell, which would be when I would grab my Dollfie Dream and polymer clay necklaces and haul them under the center of the tent.

But then the big dark cloud passed without a drop of rain and the sun returned. I began to breathe easier and spreaded the suitcase and chairs to the edges of the tent once again. Around 3 p.m. another big dark cloud passed over the festival area but that cloud was smaller than the first one and it didn't produce a single drop of rain either. But the wind remained as a powerful yet annoying force.

By 4 p.m. the wind had completely subsided and I began to feel really relieved. I had looked forward to finishing the day out with relative peace and calm, even with the increasingly dwindling crowds (which weren't all that big to begin with). I figured that the day was another big bust in terms of sales so I took some more breaks from my booth (there weren't a lot of people browsing so it really didn't matter whether I was there or not). I checked out a few other vendor booths and chatted with the people there (most of whom also reported disappointing sales). I also took a good look at the Henna booth that was located next to mine. They had a little bit more luck than I did since some people were into getting temporary henna tatoos.

Because I was working the vendor booth, I wasn't able to catch too much of the performances on the main stage (although I did hear much of the music that came from that area). By the end of the day Sunday, I had pretty much written off any hope of getting a huge profit out of my sales effort and I managed to wander by the main stage when I heard some music that really interested me. I later learned that the band performing was known as KIVA and they perform a mix of styles, including Celtic, folk, blues, big band, traditional chants, and jazz. I saw plenty of people dancing to the music.

I also did some last-minute looking around the various booths. I saw one booth that sold these cool-looking fairy wings and one of the vendors was sitting there wearing one of the fairy wing pairs.

I also took a few last-minute photos of festival participants.

My friends and I have pretty much dismantled the our booth by the 6 p.m. closing time. There was a post-festival drumming session going on at the main stage, but I was too exhausted to check it out (although I heard the drums all the way out in the vendor parking lot as I was packing my stuff). I remember at one of the last pre-planning meetings I attended before the festival some people had an idea of getting volunteers to start dismantling the festival after the post-festival drumming session gradually petered out on its own but I was way to tired and sore to do any kind of dismantling after a full day of working the vendor booth. I had promised the organizers that I would help with the final dismantling on the following day and I was told that they had a hard time last year with finding volunteers who were able to work on Monday to take everything down to satisfy the 4-H Club (which owned the facilities). So I said I would come on Monday and I made arrangements in so I could help the folks out with dismantling.

By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was totally exhausted and stiff. Since I forgot to ask someone what time I should show up on Monday, I decided to do what I did Friday and show up in the afternoon. (I didn't know what time I was supposed to show up on Friday either so I assumed that the afternoon would be a safe bet and I was proven right.) On the way to the festival grounds, I stopped off at Michael's Arts & Crafts because I learned about a polymer clay sale currently in progress and I wanted to buy some before I felt too stiff and sore from dismantling the decorations. I arrived at the festival grounds around 2 p.m. only to discover that the last of the decorations had just been packed into someone's pickup truck.

I later learned that after the post-festival drumming session had petered out, some of the organizers went up to the stage and asked those drummers who were left if they could stay behind and help with dismantling in exchange for being allowed to stay and party into the night. They got plenty of enthusiastic takers on that idea and they managed to take down the bulk of the decorations the night before. (I was told that this was not the case last year, when there were very few people available to haul tons of stuff.) So I ended up speaking to a few of the organizers and they asked me about how business was for me and I told them the truth. They said that they had similar complaints from other vendors about how they had more browsers than people willing to buy stuff. The organizers speculated as to whether the downturn in purchases was related to the current high gas prices because they said that they had plenty of visitors. I spoke a little more to the organizers but I decided to leave because I was pretty exhausted.

Back to Adventures With Dolls Index

Back to Dolls Index

Back to Home

Copyright 2009 Kimberly Keyes Stark. All Rights Reserved. None of the content on this site may be reproduced anywhere else (including eBay auctions, Etsy stores, or other auctions/sales sites) without written permission.