All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go….

Well, almost packed. On Tuesday I’ll be out of here for a couple of weeks. Heading first to Port Fairy for a week, culminating in the Port Fairy Folk Festival for the 4 days of the long weekend. Then onto Melbourne with my trading stand at the Stitches & Craft Show, 14th – 18th March.

I’ve been going to Port Fairy Folk Festival for several years now, and it’s the perfect way to combine business and pleasure. Trading during the day, concert going during the evening. As Mr Knitterly Notions isn’t such a great music lover as I, he’s more than happy to man the stand for periods during the day too, so I can nip off to a singing workshop or an unmissable artist!

This year we’re heading down a few days early, with the aforementioned bicycles hitched onto the back of my campervan. We’ll be spending some time idling around the locality, getting ready for the chaos and fray of the big shows to come.

Well, let’s hope it’s the usual chaos and fray. I’ve been over to the Stitches & Craft Show website and have to say, there’s far fewer knitting related retailers listed than is usual at the March event. Granted, it’s a huge outlay for even a small sized patch – I think my sites at these larger shows averages $5000. Then add the cost of travel and accommodation, and it puts it well out of the range of some of the smaller retailers, particularly as you’ll need to take at least double those costs before you even start to turn some profit. I know I’m always nervous for the first days of the bigger shows, until I know I’ve passed over that invisible line, from loss into profit.

But then I don’t have such large outlays as some – I have my campervan in the nearest caravan park for accomodation, and self-cater for most of my meals; no need for expensive motel bills or restaurant food every day. In fact I love ‘roughing’ it in the campervan. At the end of a frantic day of trading it’s like coming home to an oasis of calm. I usually pour myself a glass of red, settle down in front of the TV and snuggle in for the night.

But the shortage of knitting stalls doesn’t bode too well for this month’s show; I usually find business is far more brisk when there are lots of yarn related retailers together in the one place, rather than just a sprinkling of knitting sites across the show.  And also, from the perspective of the knitting public, there’s not so much to draw them there in the first place (assuming they’ve looked at the exhibition website and the list of exhibitors there). If they do actually make it to the show, will they return again the next year if they’ve been disappointed with the limited representation of their craft? And will they tell their friends of their disappointment?

I wonder what the future of these large craft shows is. I personally believe they try too hard to be all things to all people and never really achieve acclaim in any of the areas they do business. Now, my idea of the ideal craft show model would have to be the Knitting & Stitching Show in the UK. Have you ever been there ? The largest is held at Alexandra Palace, the people’s palace in the London suburbs, and there’s shows in Harrogate and in Dublin (Ireland) too. I’ve managed it to Ally Pally a couple of times from Australia, and it’s Heaven. Why does it work ? My views on that will have to wait for another day – for now I must get back to packing.

See you in a fortnight or so – or drop by and say hello if you happen to be visiting the show at Caulfield Racecourse.