Over at www.FiddleandBowStore.com, our online store, we referred people to this blog for information about our observations and insights to date and changes we will be making to the store based on these observations and insights. This posting deals with the observations and insights part.
Fiddlers' Conventions (from the vendor perspective): Note--all of these generalizations do not apply to all events.
- Blessing and Rude awakening 1: Meet great people, make friends, etc., but very few people actually buy anything. You are considered lucky (by other vendors) if you make enough money to pay the vendor fee, food and gas and break even.
- Rude awakening 2: People don't want to buy new fiddles. Rather, they would like YOU to buy their old fiddles.
- Rude awakening 3: Drunks...Fiddlers' conventions that allow drinking can get pretty scarey late at night, especially the big ones, such as the one whose name begins with a "G". It is very prudent to become very good friends with your fellow vendors, especially if at least one of them has experience as a bar bouncer, who will help you get rid of the drunk asleep in your booth area.
- Ray of hope 1: People DO buy lots of bows, including the expensive ones.
- Ray of hope 2: Australians...they love Old Time and Bluegrass music, are really nice, and can hold thier beer. Plus, people who have the money to travel half-way around the world to attend a festival usually have the money to buy stuff. This is helped by the fact that the U.S. Dollar/Australian Dollar exchange rate is not that bad and there is some sort of really high tax in the land down-under on things like bows; thus making even an expensive American bow a real bargain.
- Ray of hope 3: People love the cigar box fiddles. They don't actually buy them, because they are not cheap, but they do love them.
- Interesting: It is pretty much guaranteed that, whatever you have to sell, people will want stuff that you do not have.
- Annoying: It is not even worth selling strings and digital tuners, as the expected pricing is somewhere around wholesale. If you hold to a reasonable discount, the vendor down the lane will sell at or below cost just to make a sale.
- Exciting: In some locations, there are many Civil War re-enactors with a real interest in period instruments and skill in playing them.
We'll post about our experience with www.FiddleandBowStore.com tomorrow or the next day. Comments to this posting are most welcome.
fiddle, fiddlers' conventions, insights, Rickert and Ringholz, Don Rickert, cigar box fiddles
Nice comment about Australians - I have found that this extends to shopping online - prices are much better in the US than in Australia - in part at least because of the hefty luxury tax (!) on musical instruments plus a 10 percent goods and Services Tax (GST) which makes such items expensive when imported for sale.
Keep up the good work!
Cheers
Jerry (Canberra Australia)
Posted by: Jerry | January 25, 2008 at 06:32 PM