Saturday we encountered something we have never seen in an art fair before. My hubby and i set up our tent and he sells handcrafted natural soap, I sell Shibori hand dyed silk scarves and products. We have been doing business for 4 years, and in those 4 years we have strived to grow. My husband joined the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild, a national (no, i think international) organization for soap and cosmetic makers. He has taken tests and become certified as a soapmaker, and is working on his "master soapmaker" credentials. So we are permitted to apply the seal of the guild on our products. There is an ethical code of conduct, just as any professional organization would have.
Saturday there was another soap maker set up almost across the street. They advertise their membership in the soapmakers guild. OK, curiosity killed me so i went to the guild website and looked them up. And they did not come up. I searched by company name, and nothing. I searched by city and state - nothing. Not on the list.
Yet there they are, advertising their professional membership. It is quite a fib to use this professional membership as a marketing ploy when they dont belong.
I would have quietly just thought maybe their dues has just been submitted, or the guild website is not updated in real time... but there was another layer. At that little festival they had a woman circling the crowd, and steering people away from our booth. She was actively disparaging our products, making false statements, and in some cases physically escorting people from our tent.
We gently called her on that activity, but she would not stop. I was forced to find the festival coordinator, and ask the festival to intervene. They did, and the crazyness stopped. Thank God.
Have you ever run into such crazy behavior? And if you have do you have recommendations for how to handle it better, or ways to shut down the crazyness? This was the first time ever we encountered the steering activity. It threw us for a loop.
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There was actually one of the commercial booths at Tempe last time that was "selling" so agressively that people were walking around them and it completely ruined the show for both of their artist neighbors. I think it would have worked much better if they had the commercial products in a different section as this was not fair to artists who pay $600 for a booth and had so many potential customers miss them completely
This is going to sound crazy but I have had the same thing at a show, a fellow painter had someone holding a small canvas with a coastal fish on the front of my booth she would point toward her friends booth that painted coastal also. She would put the canvas back in the bag when someone with a tag walked by. I was not a happy girl.. I mean you could go over a row or something!
I use a ton of "Sugar" in my marketing walked over to the competion and introduced myself telling her that her artwork was fantastic and she did a good job. (She didn't know who I was.) I gave her my card and she raised her eyes. I smiled and walked away. The girl with the small painting left and all was well. Keeping up with using the good "Sugar" marketing I actually pointed people to her booth and told them to tell her the coastal artist a few booths down sent her. They may have been looking for a crab or something I didn't have....so the moral of the story is if you approach your competition look them in the eye and embrace them they have no fire - so no envy. You can't dislike a smiling southern gal with a bunch of sugar in her hand! We actually have bumped into each other - wave and speak at the end of the day but it could have soooo been different.
These are some of the behaviors and practices that cheapen and degrade the quality of an otherwise good festival. It is good to hear that the promoters and artists intervened. I hope you got some contact info for the person you mentioned and sent it to the soap association that they claim to be a member.
You did the right thing. And now I would contact the guild and let them know that someone seems to be using their name without paying any dues or subscribing to their code of conduct.
I saw some pretty outrageous hawker behavior in Northville Mi. They let a window company set up shop in a main intersection of the fair and hired some carnival barkers to literally harass people as they walked by.
Bad idea.
That's a new one.
The worst thing we've seen are the 'hawkers' who yell into the crowd to "Come taste the world's best salsa!" Really? That stopped after about 30 minutes when the other exhibitors around him told him in no uncertain terms to stop.