EkaBlog - Site Blog for Ekaweeka the Small Business Community

While we take another couple minutes to figure out our own event there are a few to mention which you should check out and support the participating Eksters.

Laura Iverson has posted an event for the Art Fair in Northern California where she will have a booth. Come check out her amazing paintings and jewelry Saturday June 10 in Santa Clara.

Folks in the Northeast should check out Jeanette Shanahan's booth at the Applefest in Warwick New York. The Applefest is going on 18 years and features 275 artisans displaying their handmade jewelry, stained glass, pottery, woodcarvings and many more.

The Summer is here and the Art's and Craft Festivals are back! Just last weekend alone there was the: Union Street Festival (San Francisco), Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit (New York City), Pike Place Market Street Fair (Seattle), AVA Arts Fest (Santa Clara, CA), and here in LA was the Los Feliz Village Street Fair to name just a few.

I spoke with some of the vendors at these events. I've always been curious if having a booth at one of these would help drum up some business. I discovered there a few things worth considering before choosing a festival to buy into. For example: know the demographic, the people at your festival should be the people who will be interested in what you have to sell. Also there are the expenses to consider, a booth at these events tends to run anywhere from $150 - $400 (generally $300), on top of that you'll want a way to charge credit cards, and you'll need a pop up tent if one is not provided (many fairs do provide the tent - but be sure if they do). So with all these costs to consider it might help to find another vendor that will share a booth with you.

No matter what - I learned it still clearly pays off to participate. Having a presence at an all day event opens up doors for meeting all sorts of potential customers, local buyers and distributors, and other vendors. Without making one sale these connections alone can do wonders for your business. That being said, if you have priced your items well and brought enough product for the right crowd you are bound to do sales. One vendor I spoke with at the Los Feliz Village Street Fair said he had done around $1000 each day of the two day fest, the booth cost him $300 - so even if he bought a pop up tent and rented the credit card machine he easily made a profit and probably made a new batch of devoted customers and buyers.

As for credit card sales: if you have a wireless aircard - just bring your laptop to the event and you can sell your items directly through Ekaweeka. We are also working on two other methods of credit card charging solutions like a virtual terminal where you could charge any credit card from your Ekaweeka account, and a phone number to call for charging a card over the phone with Ekaweeka.

Either way, like I said the summer is just getting started and, here's a list of festivals coming up in Los Angeles. Many festivals have openings up to the week before they happen and when you're that close to the line many of them will give you a discount since they need to sell as many spaces as possible so don't be afraid to ask for a deal - it never hurts and all that can happen is you might save some costs!

We'll keep you posted on all the events this summer, and don't forget to tell us about your experience. :-)

It was another excellent weekend of street fairs and festivals. This time we drove up to Ojai. Ojai is a diamond in the rough for many southern Californians. Ojai Valley is nestled 20 minutes inland from the Pacific Coast Highway about half an hour south of Santa Barbara.

We visited the Ventura County Pottery Guild's festival which was taking place in the main park downtown in Ojai. I spent some time speaking with Harry Poliak a local sculpture/potter/ceramic instructor/and kiln repair man. Harry's collection was especially interesting because half was the usual mug and bowl line of ceramics and the other half was a wild sculpture collection with some serious cultural influences.
We ended up buying 1 mug $15.00, and a couple plant like dishes one of which was only $5.00 - both looked like lily pads - awesome!

The La Jolla Festival of the Arts will celebrate its 21st year on June 23 and 24 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the UCSD East Campus parking lots.
The festival is recognized as the number one art show in San Diego County and one of the top rated shows in California. It hosts over 190 award-winning local and national artists displaying watercolors, oils, sculpture, serigraphs, fine jewelry, photography and more.
The event will have a variety of cuisines in the festival food area along with live entertainment, interactive booths, hands-on games and activities.

So far we don't see any Ekaweeka folks at the event and it is a little too late to jump on the wagon, but if you're in San Diego you should check it out. And if you're looking for festivals and events in the San Diego area to set up a booth at it would be an excellent place to meet some other people who can give you more information on what else is coming up.

For general information about the 2007 La Jolla Festival of the Arts, go to their website at www.lajollaartfestival.org.

In what could be the beginning of something great, Love Briana will be setting up a booth at the Melrose Trading Post in West Hollywood this weekend. The trading post is a weekly flea market. For the longest time I thought flea markets only carried used furniture and random garage sale type stuff. The more I attend them however, the more I see how much opportunity there is for small businesses to test out their products and make out with some considerable sales.
For those who are just getting started the former might be a great reason on it's own. At a much smaller fee then say Art Fairs and Street Festivals you can set up a table and see who takes a liking to your products and you can get a feel for how your items should be priced.

Vendors at most flea markets now have: clothing & fashion accessories, fine art, crafts, wood work, jewelry, photography and other items that are very common on Ekaweeka. We're going to make a day of it this Sunday - I'll be joining Briana for this flea market (there is a waiting list so we have a small chance of not getting in), assuming all goes as planned anyone in the area should feel free to join us. We'll be broadcasting blog updates from the booth with our insider angle on this possibly super hotbed opportunity for all EkaUsers out there :D

As promised we are here at the Trading Post. It's a beautiful hot day in Hollywood, CA. In addition to the live jazz band, hot food and beverages there are over 150 different vendors here with paintings, prints, photography, collectibles, soaps, jewelry, clothing, furniture, hats, beads, fabric, and of course much much more.

Briana has a whimsical booth - she has created an atmosphere complete with decorative ferns and flower bouquets.

We found early on that the psychology of her booth's layout required some serious though. Initially we used a walk through strategy allowing walkers by to enter her area. Shortly after we decided to bring all her tables up front so there would be easy access.

The day is still early, check back for updates as we continue to explore the potential opportunities of flea markets for art and craft vendors.

I stumbled upon the San Francisco Juneteenth Festival last weekend. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon – and not just because of yummy bar-b-que chicken and roasted corn. The crafts at the festival were so intriguing!

Juneteenth is a traditional African-American celebration which originated in Texas – and SF’s celebration is the largest outside of the founding city! There were African arts, crafts, and traditional dress and accessories. There were also kiosks boasting antique and home-made jewelry, as well as knick knacks, and accessories. I spent some time looking at rings – which are always my downfall. Big, wide rings with gaudy, over sized stones – which are sometimes hard to find. But at this fair, there was a pretty good selection – with pretty reasonable prices. The ones I particularly liked were going for no more than $20.

Some of the other accessories show-cased there were less applicable to me, but never-the-less interesting. For example: the hats – which I as a white girl could never pull off. They were mostly wide-brimmed, straw, pastel colored. Like something you’d see at the Kentucky Derby – and that’s probably the only place I could ever wear one!

Booths at Juneteenth go for as little as $30 per spot, per day on a first come, first serve basis as the Junteenth festival is being planned. Which is pretty reasonable, and it seemed like a great way to display something you’d created, acquired or designed.