First, I should say that the organizers did a great job at least in organizing the event. They were very responsive by e-mail, and it was easy to sign up and register. On the day of the event they had the tables set up and ready to go, with unloading right by the door.
It ran from 9 am - 2 pm, had my table set by about 8:30. (This is my wonderful sister Kati who helped me out with this one!)
When 9 am rolled around, Kati and I started playing the game so people would see how much fun it was. It worked right away as the vendor in the booth next to mine came over and played, and bought 2 games! It seemed the day was off to a good start. 10:00 came without too much traffic, but I figured on a chilly suburban Saturday, people might come later. 11:00, 12:00 and still not much.
I finally got a few more people to play the game - 4 in total played, and I made one more sale of 2 games. So the good news was that of the people who walked by, many were interested, those that played really liked it, and half purchased it. But no one was walking by!
I'm not sure what marketing was done for the event, but there was never much foot traffic. If I had to guess I'd say there were about 100 people total who came to the event, probably more vendors than customers! Luckily I broke even, but I would not do this one again.
Vendors on the other side reported that there was a regional high school craft fair the same day, which may have gotten a bigger crowd. Even worse, Kati is from Brick, and when I drove her home, we went past Brick High School which was having their art fair and it was packed! People were parked on the lawn because there were no parking spots (at around 2:30, and it lasted until 4 pm).
But I still think I could do well with more people! Next events I'm trying are the Birchwood Manor fair on Wednesday, Dec 4 and the Bizarre Bazaar in Maplewood on Dec 8. But bottom line for Barnegat is to avoid unless the marketing improves.
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