I've been looking forward to doing this show, as I finally got invited after a few years of applying. The show is put on by the Yellow Breeches chapter of the PA Guild of Craftsmen.
Boiling Springs is a little south of Harrisburg, about 2 hours 15 minutes away from my home, and I decided we'd just leave really early in the morning to get there for the 6am set up. We headed out at 3:30am, and got there as everyone was pulling in down a somewhat narrow one way street with booth spaces marked on both sides. The show had a cadre of volunteers that was amazingly helpful. They made sure all artists were parked as unobtrusively as possible for traffic flow, then one or two people jumped in and helped unload...amazing!
We were nervous because we were towing our trailer, which gives us about 3'more width than our SUV and neither my husband or I are incredibly adept at precise manuevering. But after unloading, other volunteers got my husband quickly turned around further down the road and parked facing the fair, so as the show ended, all artist vehicles were poised for exit.
The literature had wisely mentioned to bring shims, as our space was partially on the road and partially in a driveway and partially on a berm. If we hadn't had shims, there's no way we could have gotten our tables level...this was a drastic drop and difference in heights.
My husband and I agreed since the weather was so lovely and there was no wind, we would use our pop-up tent rather than taking the extra half hour to put up our Trimline. BIG mistake, as the wind kicked up around 10 am, and the entire tent was rocking and lifting, which tilted our table-top shelves that we chain to the tent for stability, and kept dumping my jewelry and displays off.
We spent about 1 -1/2 hours trying to hold onto the shelves before finally taking one down and putting all my work tightly packed on the table top. It didn't look pretty, but left one of us to write up sales while the other held on and talked to customers.
The customers come early, so even though the show starts at 9am, plan for people to start looking by 8:30. The crowd was friendly and savvy, and our sales were as good there on Saturday as another show that we've been doing for 6 years. There seems to be a lot of customer loyalty to the show, with customers telling us they come back every year.The show closes at 4pm.
The volunteers really made this show a pleasure to do, with offers for booth sitting, water, and all the help loading and unloading. It was a good first year for us there, and we hope to be back in future years.
