So we spent weeks figuring out our displays and tents and inventory. We packed it all up in my very large conversion Van (mommymobile) and headed to the beach in a state of excited anticipation. This was one of those situations where ignorance was bliss. Had we known what we did not know we probably would have tucked our tails and run for the hills...not the beach! But we had a Van full of coastal treasures and we were going to make some money!
We arrived and set about setting up when we realized our first mistake. We had come with a $50 sun shade type tent and what we saw was an endless row of perfect 10X10 $500 artist tents. Oh boy...embarrassing...but we set it up anyway...and rationalized that it would make us stand out...grey and white stripes were cool?? Right? Unfortunately we were soon to find out why they were not!
The tents were set up tight as sardines. There was no space in between at all... being a good neighbor would take on new meaning! Our tents backed up to the back rail of the boardwalk( which would ultimately be our salvation!) again leaving no space on any side. So we had set up our entire booth in a row with not an inch of space on either side and guess who our neighbor was???That's right a stained glass vendor..with gorgeous very expensive pieces hanging on all three sides of their tent. We had set up our display without taking into account that we needed to leave a space to come out from behind our desk to restock and help customers etc. So every time we tried to squeeze our way out front some part of our bodies would brush against the side of their tent to the tinkle tinkle clank clunk of very expensive glass with nowhere to go! We were not being the best neighbors and it showed in the faces of these poor glass artists who had had the unfortunate luck to end up next to the new kids on the block!
This would have been bad enough...but we were not through with our learning experience! We were at the beach. What force of nature do you always encounter at the beach? Wind! We had wind like a monsoon ( oh never fear...the rain was on the way!). Wind that picked up our entire little tent and wanted to carry it down the beach a couple of blocks! We did not know about tent weights and bringing buckets to fill with sand to anchor down the tents...all we had to fight this wind was a small bag of Bungee cords! So while I held on to the tent to keep it from flying and knocking down our neighbors displays, Shawnette took to the back railing with her bag of bungees and went to work! We had bungees going everywhere...and our poor neighbors reluctantly had to let us bungee our unsecured little tent to the front legs of their very well weighted down tents ( in self defense ... of course!) To this day Shawnette has the title of being the Bungee Queen and she still makes sure that every year at the beach...even though we now have our sand buckets in place...we are bungeed properly to the back rail just to make sure! She is a true Bungee artist!
What next? the rain of course! Wind was just the appetizer and rain was going to be the main course of this nightmarish Neptune Festival! Our cute little grey and white sunshade was just that... and only that! What do you mean it is not waterproof?? Could we have been anymore unprepared! Oh and one more thing ...it did not have any sides! So what were we to do...give up and go home?? No way..we had brought an enormous blue tarp for just such an occasion! Only one problem...our tent was squeezed in tight between its neighbors...and it was starting to rain..and how were we going to get this tarp around and over our cute little tent after the fact? I think all we had left in our bag of tricks were a couple more bungees and a couple of clamps and absolutely no room to work in the wind and the rain. Have you ever tried to tarp something in the wind???and the rain?? Step in Shawnette once again! She was fearless! While I held and handed and pushed and pulled, she scrambled and climbed and squeezed and bungeed and clamped. We both said we were sorry to our neighbors at least 100 times! Then finally it was done! Now we were a blue wrapped monstrosity in a sea of stately white artist tents! We really stood out now, but miraculously we had done all of this tent wrapping without breaking any expensive stained glass Hallelujah!
We survived the weekend. The weather got better. We made a little money. We learned a lot of lessons. We were now on our way to becoming seasoned veterans of the art/craft show circuits.
Shawnette is still the Bungee Queen! We still do the Neptune Festival every year and we still bungee to the back rail...just in case!
Thanks for reading!
Lynn
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1 comment:
Remeber what i said this year , when I cant climb over that railing anymore Neptune Festival will be OVER !!!!
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