Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Having a Gift and Craft Show this Weekend, but will anyone show up to buy?



I have been looking at the store flyers that showed up in my mail box today. There are some really good deals that I wish I could take advantage of. Some of the stores are already giving 70 to 80% off this weekend. Not so unusual in the US but unheard of in Canada. Here the big sales are usually saved for Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. The sad part is it does not matter how great the deals are, I just don’t have the money. This has been the tightest Christmas in years, and I am not sure what I can do about it.


We are hosting the All I want for Christmas gift and craft show to benefit McMaster Children Hospital this weekend. Even though it is in a good location, Knights of Columbus Hall in Hamilton at 222 Queenston Rd, we are worried that no one will come to buy things. Why, because no one has the money to spend. We know that the vendors are great, we have a wonderful location and have done as much marketing as we can with our small budget. There are door prizes and a silent auction all to raise money for McMaster Children Hospital.




Admittedly we could have gone with a larger hall, and used all the vendors’ fees for advertizing once the hall fees were covered. Instead we chose to go with the smaller hall and limit the number of vendors we had. Why, just in case very few people show up. As it is we have twenty vendors and had to turn down just as many. We could have filled a huge hall. Vendors are desperate to get into as many shows as they can this year, even little ones that just started out this year.



I am hoping that things work out. We have lots of people show up, our vendors do well and we are able to raise lots of money for McMaster Children Hospital. My fear is that even if lots of people show up, they just don’t have the money to buy things.

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