Successful events usually start out their run from small beginnings. It’s always a good idea to start out with a simple, memorable event than a large festival that will be harder to organize, even though the organizer may have had something grander in mind. Likewise, the Powatami Festival was small when it started in 1971, but has since grown into one of the bigger Western Indiana festivals.

The 39th annual festival that will occur in in the month of September will not be an exception. The main activities will be held at the large Ouibache Park along the Wabash River. You’ll be able to find flea market booths, food vendors and craft stalls here.

The vice president of the Powatami Festival board said, “Everyone will have a blast,” and “There will of course be other activities for the festival that can be found all around the city, including the downtown area. Sample some of the tastiest festival snacks, have fun haggling for various items sold at the flea market booths, and enjoy the entertainment that we have planned!”

Originally incorporated in 1979, the festival’s organizers are determined to keep it as part of the city scene. They are proud of their heritage and the advances it helps come to pass in a small town setting. While the Chamber of Commerce started the Festival, local residents were the ones that accepted and took charge of helping it grow every year.

The focus on arts and crafts is one of the ways in which they are able to affect real change. Because permanent items can be used as decorative pieces in the home, they can serve as a reminder of the festival to the people who purchase them, albeit an indirect one. Of course, there is no denying the skill involved in making these items. See if you can find anything you like at the Powatami Festival!

Most successful festivals start from small beginnings. While the original organizer may have something grander in mind, it’s always a better idea to make a small, memorable event than to force yourself into a large event that will not be well organized at all. The Powatomi Festival was likewise small when they began in 1971, but has since grown into one of the bigger Western Indiana festivals.

The 39th annual festival that will occur in in the month of September will not be an exception. The main activities will be held at the large Ouibache Park along the Wabash River. You’ll be able to find flea market booths, food vendors and craft stalls here.

Diana Molden, vice president of the Powatami Festival board said, “Everyone will have a blast. There will of course be other activities for the festival that can be found all around the city, including the downtown area. Sample some of the tastiest festival snacks, have fun haggling for various items sold at the flea market booths, and enjoy the entertainment that we have planned!”

The festival’s organizers are determined to keep it as part of the city scene when it was originally started in 1971. They are quite proud of their heritage and the advances it helps comes to pass in a small town area. Local residents were the ones who accepted and took charge of its growth year by year even though it was the Chamber of Commerce that initiated the festival.

One of the ways in which they are able to affect real change is through the focus on arts and crafts. As permanent items that could be used as decorative pieces in the home, it serves as an indirect reminder of the festival to the people who buy them. And of course, there is no denying the skill involved in making these items. Try getting one of them for yourself at the Powatami Festival!

If you think it is easy to predict which item among your crafts will sell each week, then think again. I daresay that it is impossible to predict such things; or how much will sell each week for that matter. Some of my crafts have been sitting in my weekly booth for a month, gathering dust if I didn’t wipe it off each day. Then, just as I was about ready to remove it to make some space, someone went in, bought it, and was gone before I understood what happened.

There is just no simple way to find if you will sell each individual item. But what’s harder to accept is the fact that there is no way to estimate how much you will sell in total for every given week. When sales are up, it feels exhilarating to feel like everyone loves the fruits of your labor and walk away with a little somwthing from your booth. But when all they can spare you is a sideways glance at your booth, then things are less fun overall.

Strive to keep your emotions in check, if you are doing a weekly show. Nothing says you have talent better than having your goods sell themselves. But, on the other hand, it’s also true in the opposite direction when it seems like no one wants to purchase your crafted works. You may start to question your talent, and will probably get disheartened.

Focus on the numbers and tally those, instead of stressing over your week to week sales. Try to see if you have had any good sales over longer periods of time; statistical data will provide a better understanding of your success than an individual day of effort. Find out what your weekly average is, and put an effort to maintaining or raising it.

I will have to warn you about some customers. Unfortunately, it is quite normal to run into customers who make it a point to haggle over every purchase they make, even if they think it’s cheap. You may hate this practice, as you aren’t some cheap flea market vendor; you put some time and effort into something they’re interested in. Don’t take it personally. I’s not that they think your goods are cheap items. These people just want to save money.

If you think you are able to predict which of your wares will be a hot item at the weekly fair, then you have another think coming. It is impossible to predict such a thing, I dare say; or how much you will be able to garner for that week, for that matter. I have a few crafted items that are gathering dust on my weekly booth for a month now, and I just wipe it off daily. As things go, when I’m about to remove it, someone jumps in to buy it. Very puzzling.

There is really no way to tell if you will be able to sell each individual product. But, it’s a lot harder to face the fact that there is no way to find out how much you will sell all in all for every week that you set up a booth. It feels invigorating when your sales are on the up and up, and everyone seems to love your crafted items. But, when all you get for your pains and effort is a few furtive glances, then everything seems to be downright depressing.

You must try to keep your emotions in check, when you doing a show on a weekly basis. On one hand, nothing says you have talent better than having your wares fly off the shelves. But, on the other hand, the opposite is also true when revenue isn’t coming in. You may get disheartened, and you might even start to question your talents and skills.

So instead of worrying about your week to week sales, focus on the numbers and tally them. See if there are good sales over longer periods of time; statistical data will provide a better account of your success than an individual day of sales. See your overall weekly average, and put an effort in maintaining or raising it.

I will have to warn you about some customers. Unfortunately, it is quite normal to run into customers who make it a point to haggle over every purchase they make, even if they think it’s cheap. You may hate this practice, as you aren’t some cheap flea market vendor; you put some time and effort into something they’re interested in. Don’t take it personally. I’s not that they think your goods are cheap items. These people just want to save money.

Regarding your weekly booth, one of the things you will probably think long and hard about it is the setting up part. Imagine how much work is needed to set up a booth at a one-time show, and then imagine doing it over and over again through the weeks. It’s no easy thing to arrange your products everyday! This will probably cause you to ingest a whole lot more coffee in the mornings.

This particular daily attention to detail will help you garner more sales. When you just decide to throw things on the table, you will have less booth visitors when compared to the days where you put a lot of effort into the setup. More folks seem to stop by, and this in turn increases the chance of a purchase. Thus, everything should look as fresh and tidy as you can make them.

Avoid sticking to one tired old set up, though. Try to get away from your “winning formula” every now and then; nothing complicated, but simple things like putting them in new arrangements will work. Shuffle the wares around a bit, and you’ll catch the eye of the market regulars who normally just pass by your stall. Let them see new items on your stall, and you might even make a sale. When you alter your style now and then, you will develop adaptability that will be useful when you set up somewhere that is unfamiliar.

After doing the set up in the morning, it’s not a good idea to just sit back and watch people go by. You’re no better than hired help. Your stuff will get picked over and scrutinized, then dropped randomly back onto the table. That is normal, but if you don’t keep an eye on your display, things will get pretty messy. So rearrange your items back into order once in a while and keep everything looking neat and fresh.

Everything should indeed stay fresh, and you, the seller, shouldn’t be an exception. Even if you wake up before the sun rises, and you’ve been powered by coffee the whole time, you can’t just slouch around and expect your shop to be lively. Smile, and put your best face forward everyday.

Print advertising has been around for decades. Before I was born, people were getting their daily news in print. And even back then, there was print advertising. It is not the type of advertising we see today with awesome graphics and fancy slogans and catch phrases. But it did exist. It has stayed in existence through wars and through depressions and recessions.

As the world has advanced, many people are steering clear of print advertising and moving forward with technology. The Internet has become something that many people cannot live without. It gives us a way to communicate with each other, catch up on entertainment gossip, gives us the up to the minute news updates, lets us pay our bills and do online banking, and we can even shop online. They days of print advertising have slowly died down. They are still there, but people are realizing they can reach a much bigger crowd by advertising on the World Wide Web. Both methods are good methods, depending on what type of crowd you are wanting to reach.

When you are trying to decide whether to advertise online or in print you want to think about your audience. Is what you are trying to sell something that would benefit others around the country or world or is it something just for the local market. Many online advertisements can be for local audiences or many can be world wide. If you use a pay per click company (PPC) to do your online advertising, such as Google, MSN, Superpages, Looksmart, ASK, or Yahoo, you can specify exactly you want to advertise and target a specific audience.

When you sign up to advertise in a paper, you will generally pay a fee based on wording to run for a certain amount of days. If you want to change your ad during that time, it is sometimes impossible to do so. With online advertising, that is something that is just much easier. Also with online advertising, in many cases you can see how many times your ads are being clicked or viewed, which is something that print advertising will never be able to offer. If you know people are clicking on your ad, then you know you have a good, eye-catching ad. If no one is clicking on your ad, maybe you need to try a different approach.

Here is an example, say someone is looking for information in Utah about a certain business or looking for a certain type of business. Well a great place for them to look is in a Utah business directory. If you are someone relocating to Utah, it may be impossible to pick up or locate a print copy. If there is a website for the Utah business directory you can look online for it and go to in from anywhere in the world. That is a benefit of online vs. print.

I talked about what happened during the first of the five craft shows on my previous entry. A church organized the one we attended this time, but due to a combination of bad timing and a sudden economic drop, it was not as profitable as we expected it to be. I will continue talking about the other fairs I have been to.

One, I’ll talk about the two shows wherein were held in schools. I would like to note one positive thing about it: the vendor’s morale is really set a high level in this place. The students will help you unload everything you have and return them at the end of the day. One of the events had it’s proceeds to go the High School Soccer team, and the coach came out during the course of the day to personally thank each seller for being there. I would gladly return to these events, if only for the delightful atmosphere.

We did relatively well, in terms of sales. It was a lot better than the amount we garnered at the church fair, at any rate. You can see the effect of the economic recession here, though; people were still opening up their wallets, but you could see they were making a conscious effort not to spend too much. The attendance of this year’s fair was down by about a fifth from the past years.

The two other shows that we attended were charity based ones. They were one of the “Old Faithful” shows that we had been going to for the past years. These shows get good attendance, as it is advertised quite well. These shows obviously have great organization. The 2008 show was no different than the previous years; but there were minor mishaps. People who pre-paid for dual table booths somehow ended up with one table each on one of the shows, which resulted in major chaos with the placement of people’s booths.

To summarize, 2008 as a craft season was mostly a red mark financially. There were no increase in cost, which is great; but profits suffered mostly because of the financial recession. After doing all the number crunching, attendance was down 15-20%, while sales itself was down for about 40%. Does this mean that we should be discouraged this 2009? Certainly not! We shall continue to persevere, and we will adopt our business strategies based on the current financial times.