It’s Sunday morning, and the first time in a long time that I don’t have pressing matters to attend to immediately. In fact, today’s going to be relatively uneventful in comparison to the last two weeks of outrageous stress and worry. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got a very full plate still – but for the last couple of weeks, I would wake up in the morning knowing that just by the way the universe works, I was already behind on things I needed to get done, and there was no way to catch up in any useful manner.

Yesterday marked the end of the official madness – the Fall Fashion Bazaar that I had spent weeks planning, curating, designing, and marketing actually happened, and now it’s over. I spent upwards of 80 hours working on just this one event in the last two weeks, not counting my three other freelance clients or my own (shaky at present) personal life. It’s fair to say that I’m a bit burned out, plus in an unhealthy spot, since I haven’t worked out since November 1st. AND on top of all that, I’m behind by five (5) FIVE! origami creations, so that’s going to have to be one of today’s major goals.

The Fall Fashion Bazaar was beautiful, and the vendors all brought great things. We had a fair amount of foot traffic, and an OK bit of sales, too. I worked so hard to get this thing on every community calendar in the city, and to get our word out through social media and word of mouth and with posters and flyers in every coffee shop and place witha bulletin board in the city. There was a huge standing sign outside of our door, and signage at the ends of both blocks, plus lots of lighting and decorative stuff outside of the front door, too. Still, though we only had about 150 people walk through the space over 8 hours, which just breaks my heart. Every vendor sold something, though – most went home with at least 100 to 150 of profit (some more than that), and most ended up being very happy with the day. After talking it over with my coworkers, it seems like the best way to increase foot traffic is to get more vendors and spill the sale all the way out almost into the street next time, instead of making passersby look in through the door to decide if they’d like to come in, we should hit them with desire from step one. We’ll see.

Here are a few photos of the sale. For more, go to http://www.facebook.com/fallfashionbazaar.

 

A few cool things came out of this experience. First off, I’ve always loved running trade show booths, and getting events and shows set up. When I was in college, I used to work in catering for a famous local restaurant, and even though I was just a lowly server, they’d let me come early and help with designing the set up since it was up my alley and they trusted me not to be a screw up 🙂 Running this event was no different, other than the sheer amount of physical and mental energy it drained working on/thinking about this 24/7 for the last couple of weeks. I really enjoyed getting to be the glue that held the event together, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even if that means I’m completely insane.

Secondly, I met a few people that I really liked, and hope to work with again. There were a few vendors that I really loved from the beginning, both because I really dug their products and also because they were just nice people who were trying very hard to promote the event from their ends, as well. I hope to get to work with them in the future on whatever they end up making and doing, just because they’re awesome and fun.

Another unforeseen perk is that I got presents! One vendor, Mokamoda, made the coolest bags and I just love them so much – the funky shapes and fun colors remind me a lot of Desigual designs. I’d link to the company website, but it’s not up yet. Anyway, at the end of the night, Laura, the designer behind Mokamoda, gave me this gorgeous clutch bag just as a ‘thank you’ for my work! It’s one of the nicest bags I’ve ever owned – it’s amazing. Also, one of the designers, Naomi Celestin of Restrung Jewelry, cut me an amazing deal on a pair of earrings that I adored. She makes all of her jewelry out of used guitar strings from Louisiana Musicians, and is seriously one of the coolest chicks I’ve met in a long time.