Please be sure to read my reviews of
2010 and
2011
Held in the downtown area of
Manteca. April 4-5, 2009.
Sat, Apr 4. We arrived there around 6:50AM
and we were shown the way to our space. It was a bit cool during
the early AM. Seemed like a lot of the other vendors arrived
earlier and had no problems making it to our space. It took us
around 3 hours to set up.
I suppose that there were over 400 booths and I recognized a lot of
vendors. Maybe you could consider this as 'Opening Day' because a
lot of vendors were doing their first event of the year. Vendors
were spread out along 6-7 blocks in the downtown area.
People started arriving around 9:00AM and we had a pretty decent sized
crowd. Sales were very slow in the morning and not much better
during the PM. People just not buying, plain and simple. The
organizers do a pretty good job getting this event off the ground and
it's great that they take you to your space. Later in the morning,
we had free coffee and donuts. That's fantastic.
I had a Lockeford Sausage for lunch. STILL only $5.
You can't beat that. A long Bratwurst in a roll with onions and
kraut on top. Probably the best sausage I've had at shows.
I've had some pretty good Italians in the past.
Stopped by a Filipino booth and picked up 12 Shanghai (pork) lumpia for
$6.00. Okay.
Was tempted to get some lemonade at The Lemon Yard. You can get a
large plastic glass which you can refill throughout the day.
That's perfect for us vendors. But you know what happens after you
drink a lot. Excellent deal and good lemonade. Saw a number
of Smoothie and shaved ice booths and that is always refreshing on a hot
day....especially in Manteca, where temps can soar. However this
time of year, it's either mild with temps around 70 degrees or downright
ugly...rain, wind..... the whole baluchi.
Sun, Apr 5. A really beautiful day....but? Late crowd,
started picking up around 11:30AM. Most definitely not a buying
crowd. I had problems with the non-profit booths on all sides of
me...wow. I had some health group passing out flyers on my
right...standing in the middle of the aisle disrupting the 'traffic
flow' and blocking people from proceding down the aisle.
Occasionally, they walked in front of my booth and handed out flyers.
I had a dancing bear on the other side of me and people lining up to
spin 'the wheel' for a chance to 'win (?) prizes'. In front of me
I had people from the Manteca Cowboy Youth football team passing
out cards. They were running all over the place like headless
chickens passing out their material and soliciting for membership.
I was sitting in my booth and I saw one of their people rush over to my
booth and handed a card to a lady standing directly in front of my
booth.
I stood up from my chair and walked over to him. "Excuse me," I
said to him. "Could you please refrain from passing out your
material in front of my booth. Those people are potential
customers of mine." He became enraged. "What are you talking
about?" he said loudly and in a very threatening manner. "I can go
anyplace I want to. This is a public street." He
denied coming over to the person, but I then told him exactly what I
saw. That's the kind of a person involved in Youth Football.
He sets a fine example, doesn't he? He talks like that to me, can
you imagine what he does to these kids?
He then proceded to rush in front of my booth and start handing out his
little mini-flyers to try to show me how big and
powerful he was (actually around 5'7" and 170 pounds and probably
about 3 in...whoops.... catch my drift?) ... minnie-mouse
handing out his mini-flyers!!! Ha ha ha. Little big boy.
Wow. He tried to show me that he can hand those out
anyplace.... real mature, huh.
I went to the promoters of the event and they said that 'theoretically,
he can do that' but it's not nice. But the lady I spoke to wasn't
really concerned and could care less. I think that
she was sitting in that hot sun too long. Anyhow, he is in
the business of selling, actually. His product is membership on
his team. So, therefore, he is taking his product across the
street to my booth and trying to sell to my potential customers.
Is that businesslike?
All these non-profit organizations and running back and forth from their
booths and disrupting traffic flow. And a good number of these
potential customers are taking these brochures and reading them as they
walk down the street, being distracted further.
The promoters of this event need to re-locate these non-profit
organizations and keep them away from people sellng 'real things', other
than bull shit.
SUMMARY. Area is not prosperous at all. No
money here. Crowds were large, but the people cattled-walked
through the show. Just following one another, not bothering
to look to the left or to the right.... just like a herd of cattle.
Vendor value of show is $60.
