Monday 13 October 2008

Show successes!


We were pleased with the display of books that we were able to provide - this is the front of the stand and it was 4 metres long. That's quite a lot of books!


This is the other side of the stand - we had a depth of three metres AND we had a corner pitch so we made the most of it and allowed the customers to come into the stand area by using more tables placed back to back with those in the picture above, and then using these wooden racks at the back of the stall. The FH made all these racks and they are wonderful for displaying all my books!



As the customers approached the stall from this direction, I think that they had a pretty impressive sight, and I was pleased with it!




The Showground has a new building called "exec" and that is where we were located. It is Huge, and we were able to drive the car and trailer into the building for the unloading and reloading, which saved an enormous amount of effort! Usually in the past, we have had to put all the boxes of books onto trolleys and haul them out to the car park.


We were in an area of general shopping, and also in the building were the rabbit show, rat/mice shows, and the pigeon show! It did get a little noisy, but at least the chickens were in another building or I think it would have got too loud!


Sales in this economic market were expected to have been down, as people are supposed to be keeping a lid on their spending. However, our sales for the day were almost exactly the same as last year, give or take £10, so we were very happy with that. I was talking with the FH last night and we wondered whether some people have bought books from us this year who perhaps might have bought more expensive gifts in the past - but books are excellent gifts in any economic climate, and we have some regular customers who keep coming back, and it was great to recognise them and ask how the gifts they bought last year were recieved!


The layout of the show was not great, but it was the first year that this new building has been in use for this show, and the craft fair was not put in with us; this led to a massive slump in sales for some of the traders and craftspeople who were in that area - my friend took a 50% drop in her sales, just because the footfall through the area was so reduced.


The FGs had a tiring day, but full of ups and downs - they did some shopping, had some "watching the world go by" moments, read a bit, played on DSs a little, signed up for the Record attempt at the World's Largest Roast Dinner, and generally wore themselves out walking, walking, walking! I wore myself out standing in one place all day! They were very good, as always, and I treated them to a ride on the carousel - it is a bit of a tradition at the show, and they love riding the horses and try to find their favourites each time! I'll put that photo in the next post as this one doesn't want to let me put it down here!




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