Prairie Heat and Tractors: Vending at Peculiar Oktoberfest

On this week’s episode of I find out so you don’t have to: Peculiar Oktoberfest Vendor Fair! There is much to say about this event from a bookseller’s standpoint, and I will do my best to cram it all in here.

The Peculiar Winery’s annual Oktoberfest was held this year on Saturday, October 5th. Part and parcel of this event was the vendor fair, which was open to the public from noon to 5 P.M., and took place in a wide open field adjacent to the winery’s parking lot. The tents were set up in a long row running directly across from a row of parked tractors. Weather was warm (upper 80s, I believe) and there was anything from a mild to stiff breeze the whole time.

The first thing I would note is how relatively informal this event was. There was no official vendor list maintained or published on the website, there was no real vendor check-in booth, nor any indicator of who was in charge of the whole affair (I happened to catch him right as I arrived, but only by chance), and booth fees were collected very loosely on the spot. In my case, one of the ladies from the Biergarten area came along and asked if I had paid my vendor fee yet at almost 4:00 in the afternoon! So, while this event has apparently taken place before, it has a loose structure at best and (needless to say) virtually no online presence or advertising. If you check Peculiar Winery’s site now, just three days later, you’ll find no record that the event ever took place at all.

Nevertheless, the locals apparently knew about it, as I believe 95% or more of the crowd was comprised of people living in the immediate area. That is not to say there were enormous crowds at any given time–I think the heat and the fact that the uneven ground did not lend itself to wheelchairs or strollers had some impact on this. If I had to guess, I would put overall attendance for the 5-hour day at no more than 200. There may have been evening entertainments on the pavilion adjoining the winery itself, but the vendor fair was well over by then.

Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: how did I do at this vendor fair? Well, the answer for the first 35 minutes is…surprisingly well indeed! As for the remaining 4 hours I was there (left a tad early)? Well, aside from the woman who came along to collect the setup fee, I did not receive so much as a single visitor to my tent. Had it not been for my constant paranoia that my tent would blow away in the occasional wind gusts we got out there on the prairie, it would have made for a very quiet, undisturbed few hours in which to make great progress on my rough drafts etc. As it is, I made pretty good progress on one.

Speaking of my tent, it was new. This was the first time I had ever used a tent with side and back flaps, and the experience was very interesting. While I was constantly worried about the sides acting like a sail and carrying my tent away entirely, they did nevertheless serve their function, which was to prevent the wind from catching my displays and knocking books and posters alike off the table. This is the first event where I did not have an instance of books toppling forward in a virtual avalanche off my display, which is very good news indeed (a few adjustments on my part also helped prevent this, I think). And while I was constantly worried about the wind bowing my tent sides inward, the fact is, all four feet were firmly staked into the ground, so the risk of the whole structure actually sailing off was very low indeed. So, trying my new tent out was the silver lining to the heat and lack of sales, and I shall be even better prepared for the next occasion this weekend.

In summary, then, it goes without saying that I will not be doing this event again, and nor would I recommend it to any other booksellers. Like the Christmas in July event I attended earlier this year, it was too far out of the way and the crowds too sparse (and in this case, too rural). Unlike the Christmas market, though, the organizers in Peculiar did not seem particularly enthusiastic or excited about their event. Nor did they bother to advertise. Even so, while I feel there is a slim chance I could have broken even had it been a bit cooler and the event better publicized, the fact is, some audiences simply aren’t going to be attracted to what I’m trying to sell. Lesson learned.

Speaking of the audience, one final note I would make about this event, aside from its obvious drawbacks, is the nature of the people present. The folks who visited my booth (the earlybirds, you might say) were all very polite, older folks who were willing to make a little conversation. However, the general impression I got from people from the outset was rather closed, and even a bit unfriendly. When I was figuring out how to set up my new tent by myself (I was alone until the last 45 minutes at this event), no one came around to say hello or see if I needed some assistance. The organizers never once came by to check on everybody–even the one came along to collect payment didn’t ask how it was going. Some attendees would stop and talk to people they knew in other booths (other locals, I presume), but even on the occasions when I ventured out of my tent to look around, no one exactly went out of their way to say hello. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t local enough (I live a few miles away, after all); perhaps because I wore a polo instead of a t-shirt; perhaps simply because that polo was pink. I’m not sure. But while I don’t wish to cast a dim light on the people of Peculiar as a whole, the folks who attended this particular event–including the organizers–were not quite what I had come to expect.

I will take the lessons learned here and apply them to future events, including the Burg Fest, which will be happening this Friday and Saturday, October 11th and 12th, on Main St. Warrensburg, MO. If you happen to be in the area, look for me behind the Bluedrake Books table while you’re there!