Riverdale Holiday Market, Riverdale Park, Maryland
December 9-10, 2006

(Originally written on December 11, 2006)

This past weekend was pretty crazy. I worked one craft fair hawking my wares while I sent some of my stuff for someone else to sell at another craft fair that my church was holding at the same time.

A few weeks ago I got word that the town of Riverdale Park was holding its first annual Holiday Market. Since it's literally the craft fair's first year, there was no way I could ask anyone if they had ever gone to this fair in previous years. But the town is located just a few towns over from where I live so I figured it would be no big deal to have a pre-Christmas sale at that festival. The $25 vendors fee for the entire weekend was another added incentive for me. So I filled out the application, paid the fee, and mailed it in.

About a week or two later, I got this announcement that someone at my church was organizing a first-ever holiday craft fair after the Sunday service on December 10 and she was looking for people to sell their crafts at the church and a portion of the proceeds would go towards the church while the crafters would get some of the profits as well. The only problem was that this conflicted with the second day of the Riverdale Park event. Had I got the announcement a few weeks earlier, I would've registered for only one day of the Holiday Market event instead of two days (which was an option). So I e-mailed the organizer and she suggested that I simply send over a few of my items with my husband and she would try to sell them for me.

In the meantime, I prepared for the Riverdale Park event. Normally there are numerous craft fairs going on throughout the entire Baltimore-Washington, DC metropolitan area during the holiday season and they are all usually located inside either warm buildings or giant heated tents. I assumed that it would be the same thing for Riverdale Park. Imagine my surprise when just three days before the first day of the event I got this e-mail from the organizers suggesting that we all pack tents and lights. I began to think, "Wait a minute, they aren't trying to do an outdoor festival in Maryland in December!" I also started to dread the event mainly because the temperature had been dropping for the last few days and the Friday before the event a cold front had moved in with the highs being 35 degrees F.

So I arrived at the event Saturday and found that, yes, it was all being held outside despite the fact that the high would be 45 degrees F, the market would be run from 1-9 p.m., and it would be dead cold once the sun sets. I spoke to a couple of other vendors and they were also surprised that this event was being held outside in Maryland in December.

Setting up on the first day basically sucked since wind gusts kept on knocking down my necklace display. I ultimately had to keep the cork board off the easel since the wind kept on knocking the whole display over. I had to display my Dollfie Dream in a chair since I know from previous experience how rickety her stand can be with wind gusts. I was able to put her in her stand a few hours later after the wind died down.

During the late afternoon the organizers did bring out these giant gas heaters to keep the whole open area warm. The bad news is that much of the heat was going out the top and if any vendors or attendees wanted to get warm, the person had to stand directly under the gas heater and raise his/her hands up to the top. Forget about keeping the feet warm since nothing came out the bottom. The gas heaters basically sucked.

The organizers also brought out a string of lights to keep the area lit, which was just as well since the desk lamp I brought had burned out a light bulb. But the few shoppers that attended really tapered off once the sun set to the point where I spent more time socializing with other vendors under the gas heaters than I selling stuff.

As for the people, well there were a few browsers but I think the majority of potential shoppers opted either for other craft fairs held indoors or a regular indoor shopping mall because it was way too cold for anyone to do anything other than take brief cursory glances at all the vendor tables.

Despite the obstacles, I managed to sell a few things at my table. Over a two-day period, I sold four Barbie fairy dolls, four paperweights, and one polymer clay box. I sold enough to break even but I have a feeling that the entire festival would've been more successful had the event been held inside a building.

The next day I sent over two dolls and ten necklaces with my husband to sell at the church craft fair while I headed back to the Riverdale Park event. The good news was that the temperature reached the low 50's and it was a beautiful sunny day, as you can see in the photos below (which were all taken on the second day of the festival). Click on any of the photos to see a larger version open in a new frame.

By Sunday the wind gusts had completely gone away so I could put the necklace display back on the easel.

I even tried enticing people to visit my booth by giving away free cookies. I normally don't do this at outdoor festivals in warmer weather because I don't want to attract bees and other stinging insect. What was weird was that I actually saw this one honeybee who kept on hanging around the cookies, which astounded me since it was December and I usually don't see bees or any other kind of insects during that time of the year. (I also saw one fly, which was also strange.)

I took two photos of the entire festival from different angles during the afternoon. This should give you an indication of how light the foot traffic was. I was lucky enough to even sold a few of my stuff despite the light turnout.

I'm definitely crossing this event off my list to work at in the future. Thanks to these people, I'm going to have to pre-screen every potential potential craft fair in November and December by asking if an event will be held indoors or not before I even agree to participate. There is no way in hell I'm working an outdoor festival in the Mid-Atlantic Region in December again.

As for the craft fair at my church, I found out that three of my necklaces sold but neither of the dolls I sent over sold. Oh well.

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