My weekend

As you might know, my husband and I own a professional archery shop in conjunction with my skin care product business. We sell bows and archery equipment, as well as service bows for customers.

This past weekend, we displayed at an outdoors event in Oshkosh, Wi. The event had been going on for years, and had a great turnout. We decided to vend and sell apparel representing the bow manufacturer that we retail. We paid our booth fee expecting to bring in much more in sales. This was our first show, and we had high expectations. The show reportedly brings in 70,000 during the 3 day event.


We set up and were ready to go, having lots of help on hand to assist with the sales. I almost got a whole book read. Yep, you guessed it, we flopped. Other repeat vendors told us that this year's attendance wasn't even one fifth of the past years. We didn't even break even. With the cost of the booth, extra insurance for the event, and the purchase of additional apparel items for resale put us in the black.

Many vendors even packed up and left after the second day. It was that bad. So, is this the norm all over the country, or is it just in my area? I really don't know. I do know that most folks were not buying. They were picking up the freebies and walking out with literature. Very few bought anything from anyone.

I was bummed. I was hoping to really get a good following. We did get our name out to the community by having the booth. There is no way to know how many people will actually come in to purchase at a later date, but I know we did let a few area people know that we are here. That is a great thing, but it sure makes for expensive advertising.

What do you think? Is this a nation wide symptom of a slow economy or is it different where you live? We would love to hear your comments.