New Taste of Stowe - Part II

I made it to the field about 10am on Thursday, in time for the exhibitor check in. It was really great to finally meet in person and put faces to all those names I have been seeing over the past several months at this job. Not so great were the heavy rainclouds that hung persistently about and periodically dropped buckets of rain on our heads and on the festival field and all the gravel (subsequently mud) roads throughout. It was a fairly dismal day, made exciting by events but with an ever-present fear that this might just be the weekend's forecast.




Imagine our feelings of relief when 6am the following morning brought bright blue skys and mountains glistening from the overnight thunderstorm. Friday was a gorgeous day. We finished the set up and the public began to arrive as soon as the gates were open. It was not a mad crowd, that would have been an unusual - although certainly acceptable - turn of events for a Friday morning. But it was satisfactory. This was our first festival of the season, but some of the exhibitors reported that at other festivals, attendance has been down by some 20-50%. We had significantly better results than those, but the current economic situation was apparent. Interesting how that works.


I spent most of Friday touring the tents, meeting and chatting with exhibitors. There are some really wonderful people who attend this show - I am looking forward to seeing several of them again in Manchester, VT next weekend!



Saturday, I had to make a trip to Syracuse, New York to visit another festival - it was a big weekend!