The AQS Show Itself - the People We Met and Food we Tried

Wednesday morning, Aug. 20, the first day of the show rolled around, whether we were ready or not. It was the first day and they let us in at 7:15, if we wanted, due to a tour being given at 7:30 to those who purchased said special tickets.

I needed to be there, not having had a chance to price the rulers or fold my bundles up yet. So, I bustled in as close to 7:15 as I could get, and went straight to work. Ken and Steven went to Burger King, 3/4 of a mile away, to bring breakfast back. I will note that this was the only day they were willing to do this!

I snagged a picture of the tour group, because I kept waiting for them to come by. Until I went and found them, I didn’t realize that it was a tour of the SHOW, not the vendors!

The guy in the tan pants and blue shirt had a camera on a super long stick. Not sure if he was official AQS or a blogger or a participant who wanted to remember this event into eternity, but I found it humorous, so I took his picture!

I got the rulers priced, and my packs bundled up. By then it was around 8:30 and Ken and Steven had come back with food, which I gladly stopped and enjoyed!

When you have a booth, you always see things that need straightening or improving.
We also needed to get the money box out and set it up, sign into our payment device, and make sure we had bags handy.

By 9:02 a.m., we had customers. Then more came. Then more came.

Now, we had a walkway that was at least 6” narrower than the other aisles, if not more like 2 feet narrower, but it simply created a lot of help in us being able to tell people about our wares. They couldn’t escape us by much.

It was our job to basically hawk our goodies. We were like street vendors.

Mainly we were trying to sell backings, blades, 3 yard quilt kits and individual yardage. We had a few other things as well, but those were our big 4, with the 3 yard $39 backings being in the main attraction.

Of course, we were letting people know we had a TULA PINK quilt kit drawing, and trying to get people to sign up for that as well.

If a participant came by with a ribbon, we asked them about their quilt in the show. If we saw someone with a PA or FL t-shirts, we asked about it. That part was fun, but all of this talking did take a toll on our voices.

We looked for these visitors to our booth

… all in all, we had lots and lots of people who came by telling us one of these 4 things:

1) I order from you

2) I’ve been in your store in Florida

3) I follow your blog

4) I get your emails each day.

Any of those things warranted a picture. so, all day long, all 4 days, Ken and I were taking pictures and giving out hugs. It was a fun - fun - fun part of the show!

Each evening, we found a new place to dine out. We had hoped to be able to store the trailer at the DeVos Center, and have the truck to tool around in, but that didn’t seem to be an option, so we just walked to area restaurants within walking distance. Supper was our only real meal of the day, except our first morning Burger King breakfast. We had no time for lunch. We stopped by Walmart on our first night there and picked up breakfast foods for the hotel room.

The first night was Mexican, then Burgers, then All American, then the final night we celebrated with Steaks. All were delicious, and all outside of our normal Dade City fare. Steven said that on the last night he got salad with gravy! It had us in stitches! It’s rich people’s food. We don’t normally eat rich people’s food, but it was exceptional.

Did we meet our expectations?

That’s hard to say, because I wasn’t sure what to expect, having never done a show in Michigan at all. I know how many SHOP HOPPERS were going to each store, about 2x as many as in Florida, so I was hoping to do 2x as well as we did in Daytona. However, we did not. BUT we did slightly better than Daytona AQS. Here’s how it broke down. BUT, we saw bazillions of our Northern friends and that made it amazing!

Day 1 - We basically sold the same amount as we had in Daytona. It was spread out longer than the Daytona days, so it seemed more steady, and less crazy busy. I, of course, knowing how much we had stored in those closets and still in the trailer, was hoping for more!

Day 2 - We sold about $100 more than Day 1, which was nice, as we had been told there were 4 busses and we’d do very well. This was within $100 of Daytona.

Day 3 - We were down quite a bit, even from Daytona, and had 3 busses, we were told.

Day 4 - Last day. We were pleased to greet new people into our aisle, even up until 3 p.m. or so and we sold about $1000 MORE on the last day than Daytona.

Finally, 4 p.m. came, and we could officially start to pack up without facing fines. Other places didn’t seem to care as we could hear the click, click, clanging of long arms being taken apart from 3:15 p.m. on. So, we’re still not sure why all the threats, if everyone but our aisle was breaking down. (The 5 of us at the end of our aisle were terrified of fines apparently as we all waited until 4 p.m. to break down our booths!)

We knew that come 4 p.m., Steven and I could break down fairly quickly, because it’s definitely easier to put into boxes than it is to decide where to put things neatly. So, we had Ken go the 1/2 mile away and bring the truck and trailer to us by around 3:35 or so. We broke down quickly, but the team that ran the show broke down super fast as well. They had teams taking down quilts and more teams taking apart the poles, curtains, tables and more as quickly as we could clear them.

By 5:50 p.m., we were pulling out of the parking lot at the DeVos Center with our stuff all stashed back into the trailer, wondering why in the world we had brought so much stuff to Michigan? It was heavy to put into the trailer; heavy to haul in, and heavy to haul home! Oh my. Next time we go to a show, I’ll be more careful!

However, the whole last day effort had taken a toll on us, and the “no food all day” didn’t help, so we stopped somewhere and got food and by dark, we had found a hotel to just finally relax and rest.

Would we go back?

Ken’s answer was exactly how we all felt. “Not tomorrow.” This trip took a lot out of us physically, and we hadn’t even faced our return trip!

Little did we know what was in store for us ahead. Good thing, right? But next, the vendors.

Rachael WoodardComment