Waipawa 150th Celebrations Market

I worked like a dog this past week completing $1000.00 worth of work for Waipawa's 150th Celebratory market at Coronation Park. The first glitch occurred Friday night when I rang to check that the person who was bringing my jewellery stand from Hastings Community Arts Centre had done so. She had forgotten. So till 11.30pm that night I was busy finding baskets for cards, my black velvet covered polystyrene block to hang my pendants from as well as finishing pressed flower cards and wrapping brooches.

Up early the next morning I had a phone call from Hastings from the lady who had forgotten to collect my stand. She'd driven all the way back to work to collect it and would leave it outside her house for me to pick up. I was running late when Gay who was helping me for the day turned up. She loaded the car while I finished letting chooks out, feeding chicks, getting dressed etc. By the time we arrived in Waipawa it was 9.20am (ten minutes before I was meant to be at the park) so Gay rushed in to find the stand which she couldn't see so I went around the back and discovered it under a staircase. By the time we'd rearranged the car to accommodate it we were very late but were allowed into the park despite being one minute before cut off.

Most stallholders were established by this point so we looked around to find Marie N whom I was sharing the stall with. She was busy trying to unravel the intricacies of her new second hand marquee along with two helpful men who were sticking poles in various places. There was a generalised panic but after throwing the canvas roof over the frame they were able to fit the corner poles in and lift the whole thing into place. The next door stallholder had agreed to come under the marquee with us in return for us taking over some of her space so she set up in one half which left us with the other.


Marie had brought along four round tables (two each)for us both but as she unloaded them from the trailer each one the legs pulled away from the wood so they couldn't stand which left us with one four foot diameter table between us. I covered this with a tablecloth and by 10.45am had set up the table and hung some small paintings up on a a cargo net Marie had strung between on the side. I sat out the front and began painting to try and draw people in while Marie sat at the back and stitched her dolls.


And then we waited. The main parade arrived in the park at 11am with the public following. A great many people walked past including some in costume, a few friends popped in to say hi, but few public ventured in. Then a nor'wester began blowing everything around. My business cards took off, dolls flew off the table, paintings swung around but fortunately I had painted stones so was able to use them as paperweights to hold things down.

By lunch time I had stopped painting and did a bit of rearranging to try and entice people in. By 2pm the next bout of wind began and by that time I had had enough. For apart from Gay buying a couple of cards and the stall holder next door a couple of soaps I sold nothing at all to the public. This for the first time in over twelve years. I packed up my stock, Gay loaded the car and we asked a couple of ladies to help us lift the marquee over the other stall holder who hadn't packed up so that we could help dismantle it. No way were we wanting to leave Marie to cope with having to pack that away all on her own.

Both Marie and I came out of the event out of pocket and me with my confidence absolutely shattered. I had items marked from $3 upwards, everything professionally packaged, everything original and hand painted. Why why why?

Next post will be titled "How To Deal With Failure" once I work out how you do that.