Event:  The Craft Fair at Casa de Fruta, Holister, CA
Labor Day Weekend, Sep 5-7.Hollister, CA
THE REVIEW

THE REVIEW.  Those of you that do not wish to read my whole story can just read this review and go no farther. I'll provide you with a basic evaluation of the show. However, most of the people will read everything.  Enjoyable with lots of pictures.

回顧。 回顧的一個縮短的版本將在星期二之前安置這裡。 不希望讀我的原委的那些您可能讀這回顧並且沒有去。 I' ll提供您以展示的一個基本的評估。 然而，大多数人民將讀一切。 令人愉快與許多圖片。

LA REVISIÓN. Una versión acortada de la revisión será puesta aquí por martes. Los de usted que no desean leer mi toda la historia pueden apenas leer esta revisión y van no más lejos. I' el ll provee de usted una evaluación básica de la demostración. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de la gente leerá todo. Agradable con las porciones de cuadros.

This was a three-day show at Casa de Fruta in Hollister.  Very nice place to stop over for tourists, but expensive.  Around 35 booths there with a variety of merchandise.  The people came out during the latter part of each morning and continued until around 2:00 each day. Then it turned into a ghost town.  However, they were very hesitant to buy and purchased little from the vendors, most of whom did not fair very well over the weekend.  People just not buying, period.  Some entertainment.  The weather was okay with occasional breezes some gusts now and then.  The price for this event, along with others here is quite reasonable, so I'll continue coming back and I guess, so will many of the others.  The economy will turn around and we'll just keep on hoping that the coming week's bring a lot of customers that spend money.

other Casa de Fruta Reviews:   Easter, April 11-12, 2009,  Labor Day Weekend, Aug 30-Sep 1, 2009,

Saturday, Sep 5.  Wife was sick, so she needed to rest up this weekend.  My son, Ed, came with me today.  We left home at 4:15am and drove the 72 miles there, taking Highways 880, 101 and then 152 for the last 15 miles or so.  Arrived there around 5:30.  Still dark, of course.  I saw 5-6 other vendors standing in one area.  "Where's Mike?" I heard one of them say.  I checked with them to see which spaces they wanted, since they arrived before me.  I was able to get my usual space, actually and began unloading the van.  Still dark.  Got up the canopy and grids.  Quite thankful that there was no wind.  We were finished setting up by 8:30 and open for business, ready to greet the multitudes of people along with busloads that would bring tourists to Casa de Fruta.  I saw three buses pull up around 9:00am and virtually all of them headed for the bathrooms.  Wrong time fo me to go, that's for sure.  Few of them stopped by the booths, if any.

WATCH OUT FOR FLYING CANOPIES (again).  TRULY AN UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE!! The weather was quite nice the entire day with temperatures in the high 60s to low 70s.  Occasional breezes popping up periodically with some heavier gusts during the afternoon and this is what happened during the middle part of the afternoon.  Watch out for Flying Canopies!!!  I was located amongst the other canopies with booths on both sides of me.  There were four booths located along the left side of the lagoon and this one was the last one there.  A 10x20 booth and it flipped completely over.  I had looked in that direction a couple times, but didn't think much of it until Mark pointed it out as being a canopy flipped over.  You know, I had glanced over there, but I thought it was a teepee or something, but of course, I didn't have my glasses on okay?  What a terrible day for these people.  I have no idea whether they had it weighed down, but nonetheless it wasn't weighed down sufficiently since a strong gust came swooping in and overturned it.   OR

ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY Christo and Jeanne-Claude now on display.  Entitled Casa de Ghosta.  On sale for $1350.00

THE MORNING wasn't really too bad; at least we had some people.  But by early to mid-afternoon, the place turned into a ghost town.  Come on down and visit the Hollister Ghost Town, located 50 miles south east of San Jose.

EMPTY PARKING SPACES behind our booths for much of the afternoon.  Where had everybody gone on this beautiful Labor Day Weekend.  We weren't being plagued with the 105 degree temperatures of two years ago.  Who is Harry Kellerman and why is he doing this to me?  This picture was taken around 2:30pm. Damm, where the hell are the people?  More empty parking sports all over the place.  People just did not come here during the afternoon, period.

 

  

MY AFTERNOON 'WALKABOUT'.  As you can see, this is a very nice location for a craft show, as are most of Mike's location with the exception of Lone Pine.  Actually, it's pretty nice out on Highway 395 and a beautiful, scenic drive.  Mt Whitney and Death Valley are nearby.  Remember the Lone Ranger (and other westerns?).  It was filmed out there 50+ years ago.  Anyhow, I took several trips around the grounds and took some nice shots.

You can see the inside of the main store in the photo on the bottom left above.  Lots of goodies to eat there, but expen$ive and I refrained from buying anything, except for a couple sandwiches from the restaurant.

DUMB ASS SKATEBOARDERS.  I was standing in front of my booth talking to one of my neighbor vendors and these two kids (12-13 yrs old?) come flying past us on their skateboards.  What the?  Who the?  Uh uh.  "They are not going to do it again," I said.  I was still standing out there two minutes later when I saw one of these punks come racing down the aisle again.  I jumped out in front of him and held out my arms, indicating for him to stop.  I looked at him.  "You are not going to go racing up and down here.  This is dangerous and you are affecting my sales.  You have to go....get out of here.  Go all the way down to the other side.  Way down."  He then skated off .  Done.  Gone.  Bye bye Balboni for him. 

   

HERE'S A SHOT OF THE BOOTHS  adjacent to the parking lot.  Maybe we had 34 vendors today.  Nice assortment of crafts, etc., but nobody buying.  Check out the sweet shop above.  Lots of sweets there, I have to say, but mighty expensive.  Like a zillion dollars for some chocolate.  For the past couple weeks, I have been craving for some Pistachio ice cream.  A few weeks back, I envisioned us doing the Italian Festival in San Jose, a show in which the people running the event claim that they 'never received my application.'  Oh bull shit.  Let me look around their office, I am sure I can dig it up.  Baloney!  There was an ice cream/yogurt place just down the street there and it had delicious Pistachio ice cream there.  Loved it.  And I was thinking about getting some more of it for the past several weeks.

Anyhow, the Casa de Sweets shop had Pistachio NUT ice cream.  I got a two-scoop cup for $3.75 (Imagine getting almost a gallon of ice cream for that price at Food Maxx, okay?)  Anyhow, it really didn't have that great pistachio green color to it and I think mainly it was just a 'pistachio nut' ice cream with a bit of pistachio flavoring.  Disappointment.  I loved pistachio ice cream when I was growing up in Massachusetts many years ago.  So be it.

NOT OVER UNTIL THE .......  I was sitting in my chair toward the back of the canopy when a rather large woman steps into the booth.  She picked up a fan and asked me if I had any smaller one's.  I looked up at here.  Wow.  She must have weighed 400 pounts and she is asking me if I had a smaller fan?

    

YOU THINK THE PARKING LOT LOOKED EMPTY?  The picture on the right was taken around 2:30pm.  It's a shame that we don't have more people coming out supporting these wonderful 'crafters, etc.'  I saw a lot of nice stuff around the place. We had entertainment throughout the day and I think it was better than what we had in Grover Beach at the Stoned Soup Street Faire.  Tomorrow, we might see Willie Nelson Knapp take the stage.



Here's a shot of the pathway in back of the booths.  Very nice.  But nice pathways do not put money in our pockets. 

DEDICATION CEREMONIES for the Mike Knapp Scenic Byway will be held on Sunday afternoon at 1:30pm.  Be there for the cere-moneys.  This is the pathway that Casa de Fruta was able to build from the money we all paid Mike.

ALTERNATE NAMES FOR THIS EVENT.  I'd like to make this a regular feature for each review.  I have several in mind for this one.  Casa de Knapper, Casa de Ghosta.  More to come.

So that's about it for Day Number One of the Labor Day Weekend Craft Fair at the Casa de Ghosta.  Sales were poor for many. many people.  I don't think that 1/4 of them made their booth fees today

Sunday, Sept 7.  Wife still sick and I'll be there by myself.  First time in 16 years that I have had to drive to an event and spend the day there by myself.  If you see me sleeping in my chair, please wake me up.  THIEVES AND LOW-LIFE PEOPLE.  Please do not take advantage of me.  I'm going to wear my sunglasses today so you are not going to know whether I am sleeping or not.  If you are purchasing something and I am asleep, please grab a metal clip from the grid and just attach the money to the grid.  We will use the honor system here, okay?

DO YOU REMEMBER BACK IN THE EARLY 70s there was a comedy group called Firesign Theater.  They have an album called 'I think we're all Bozo's on this Bus.'  That's the way I feel sometimes at these shows.

The weather was nice again.  When I arrived there, I walked over to the restaurant and ordered an ABC (avocado, bacon and cheese) Omlette.  They have really changed their menu around and I didn't see much else that I liked.  I then went over to our booth while I was waiting and loosened up some bungies that were holding our covers down.  I returned to the restaurant, picked up my food and went back to my car to eat.  Food was okay, but for $8.95, I just don't know.

It was a rather boring morning, as there were hardly any people.  The crowds picked up later in the day, but they weren't really buying.  They did have quite a bit of people walking around, but they were just looking, grabbing and trying on stuff.  Many of them could care less about buying anything.

I WOULD NOT BLAME THE PROMOTER for this.  The people were there and he had a nice complement of booths.  He got the people there. Just not buying and there's nothing more that you can do.  You can lead the horse to the water..... you know the rest.

I had occasional sales throughout the afternoon and didn't end up terribly bad. 

HAD 2 LADIES PUT ON MY EXPENSIVE HATS and I saw their friend (or whatever the hell he was) snapping a picture of them.  I wish that people would learn to respect vendor's merchandise.  I jump up and ran over and told them 'NO PICTURES, PLEASE.'  Then the gus says, "duhhhh, why not?"  BECAUSE THEY ARE MY HATS AND I DON'T ALLOW PEOPLE TO TAKE PICTURES.  I AM TRYING TO SELL THEM!"   "Duhhhh.  Why don't you put up a sign."  I looked at him again.  "I thought people would know better.  That will be five dollars, please."    "Put those hats back."  mumble, mumble, mumble.  Of course, he didn't pay the privilege,  but I just wanted to put it in his mind and he will have second thoughts before whipping out that camera again.  Hell, these were $25 hats.  They get dirty and I won't be able to sell them.  If you are going to buy, do so. 

PROP BOOTH.  Need to set up a booth with a variety of people's products and charge $5.00 for each picture.  That way if they don't want to buy the merchandise, then they don't have to bother the vendors or ruin their products.  They just go to the booth for pictures. (Yah, I know they have these photo booths where you can take these old-style photographs).  At the end of the day, the vendors split up the money.  Another million dollar idea brought to you by a Starving Vendors.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK.  A lady points over to my 'rolling' shopping carts and asks "How much is number 12 over there?"  I looked over at her.  "Uh (or Duhhhh, is better) that is twelve dollars."  Didn't buy it.

I really try to be nice to my customers and I treat them very well.  However, when I get somebody crossing the line and doing something that they know is wrong, I just about toss them from the booth.

I SPOKE TO A NUMBER OF VENDORS and they told me that their sales are down....wayyyyy down.  Some of them 50 percent.  These are rough days.  If it weren't for a new product that I am selling, I would have done worse than I did.    Here's is a lovely shot of a booth that was selling beautiful hand-made wooden items.  Even the actual booth itself was fantastically designed.  Very special talent.  Sorry I don't have shots of his products.

               

Around 3:00pm, I received a call from home (73 miles) and had to close up and tend to a family emergency and came back early Monday morning and pack up my things.  I could only imagine another slow day there but I was not around to enjoy neither the 'agony' or the 'ectasy.'