On Saturday the 19th, the town of Walnut Cove had its annual Spring Fest. We have never participated in this event mainly because we really don’t have anything small or generalized to sell and It’s way too much work to bring a unit of plywood or some 40 foot long LVL’s.
But this year being our 50th anniversary I decided to give it a whirl and set up a booth if nothing other than to be seen and support the town. We arrived at 8am to start setting up not really knowing how long we would be there because of the high rain/storm chances or the probable lack of crowd because of the weather. We brought a door display, Wild Hog Railing display, lot’s of pamphlets, candy and other display items.
We were prepped, primed and ready for our day to begin and then it started going downhill. We brought quite a few of our t-shirts to sell and we had them all folded up neatly (well sort of neatly…I can stack 2×4’s…not much on folding shirts…hehe) and arranged by sizes and colors. We hung a few up as samples on our tent, put out the $6.00 each price sheet and patiently waited for the crowd to appear. Before long a guy walked up that I have never seen before and said $6 BUCKS!!!! Ya’ll should be giving those away not selling them! Ok! Gotcha! Strike one!
Few minutes later another gentleman that I have never seen before came up admiring our nifty shirts, commenting on how he liked they had Walnut Cove NC printed on them, when his slick dressed sidekick walked up and proceeded to explain the concept of writing off “give away goods” for the point of advertising and we should be giving them away instead of trying to make a profit. Are You Kidding Me!! Really! Strike two!
Our day had just begun and just like that….Smack!! I mean where can you buy a nice Gildan brand T shirt in your choice of two colors that have been custom screen printed for six bucks. We give out all kinds of free goods to our customers and to tell the truth we paid more than six dollars for the shirts, we were just trying to recoup some of the cost to help with pay for the next batch.
I started feeling better after I realized that one of those ummm“gentlemen” had on a Bass Pro Shop shirt. They don’t usually give those away either Ha!
After that brief run in with Captain Obvious and his sidekick everything started to click. The sun popped out and the crowd began to pick-up. We gave out lots of information, handshakes and smiles! It turned out to be a nice day and I was surprised what a large crowd we had. I believe I heard they had over a hundred vendors signed up to attend. They had train rides, music, dancing, tons of food and it seemed like most people came out despite the weather forecast. All in all the day was a success and I look forward to next year already! Support your local economy!!
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