I had a booth at the Cheraw Spring Festival Craft show for the second time this year. I went for a double booth this year, and am glad I did. The work showed much better in a less cramped space. While there was still a huge crowd, it was down from last year, and my sales were about a third of what I did last year. Other vendors I talked to who were there last year also said their sales were down. I know the economists say the economy turned last fall, but around here (SC), I think we are actually in worse shape now than we were last year, and folks just weren’t buying as much.
I took photos of most of the booths, and will paste them below so you can get an idea of what the show was like. This is NOT a juried show, and is NOT handmade only! This should be evident from the photos <grin>. Makes for an interesting show, to say the least…. Local stores have booths, there was a face painter and a caricature artist, someone selling cheesecakes, the local Mennonites had a booth with baked goods that sold out the first day! The local state park had a booth, one of the schools had a booth – and that was all inside! There were more booths outside, but I never had time to visit them.
There were way too many booths with jewelry. At least five that included at least some hand made jewelry. I think only two or maybe three of us had only things we had made ourselves. Then others had a mix of things they had made and things they had bought, and some had only purchased jewelry. I overhead many of the crowd saying there was too much jewelry, and they were right.
My favorite booths were the folks who made the bottle trees (I love bottle trees!), and the folks with the to die for Brother embroidery machine almost across from me (boy, talk about having lust in your heart!!!!) who had some of the nicest machine embroidery I have ever seen.
The festival features Civil War Re-enactments and a “camp”; lots of local talent on stage; a Fine Arts and Crafts Exhibit (I received 2nd place in adult crafts and my daughter received 3rd place); a car show; some years a BBQ contest; a fire safety house put on by the fire department; church BBQ; the local Masonic Lodge does a Ham and Grits supper and breakfast, and lots, lots more! For more information on the Festival, and on Cheraw, you can visit these sites: http://visitcheraw.com/annual_festivals_events.html and http://www.cheraw.com/
OK now for the photos. This is not all the booths by a long shot, but it will give you an idea of the range of items for sale. I’ll start with my booth (my signs say “Handmade right here in Chesterfield County) – since so much is clearly made overseas!):
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