Just finished this show yesterday at the Canterbury Park Raceway in MN, just outside the Twin Cities.
It's part of the Huffman Productions group of touring shows - 8 shows in 4 cities, spring & fall events in each city. I knew it was big and thought I'd give it a go and see what happened.
To sum up - the show is very craft oriented and there was a lot of well done work within this category. I am a jewelry metal smith and it was not my market.
If you do beading or crystals or anything along these lines and can keep your prices below $40-50 you could do well. People who sold teddy bears etc. did well - they made lovely bears and were able to charge more, tapping into the collector's market.
The show was well organized and publicized though much more signage on the roads was needed (I drove past it twice - missing the entrance not knowing where the Festival was within the raceway) and when they say you need lights, you really need lots of lights!
My booth neighbors - kid's handmade wooden puzzles; antler miscellany; folk art paintings, mostly reported that sales were VERY decreased from previous years. They said that the fall events are usually much more lucrative but given the sales drop this spring I don't know if that will be true for this fall.
They also said that attendance looked to be way down, saying that in previous years the aisles were packed. Well, we had the the bowling alley effect for a lot of the time!
I recommend getting the vendor list from this year, finding someone in your field and emailing them directly for more information if you're considering this show or the Huffman series.
Good luck! :-)
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