First Friday in Downtown Las Vegas, NV - 10/4/13

Within the last couple of years, I've attended First Friday several times as a visitor, buyer, and spectator but since Sean and I opened our own online store, CandyMountainCrafts.com, last year we've also been contemplating selling at public venues such as First Friday.

For those unfamiliar with Vegas' monthly First Friday celebration here's some info about it directly from their website:

What: "Young and established local artists displaying and selling their work. Food trucks galore, Interactive KidZone, GreenZone, Music with 3 stages and over 12 live bands. Special Art Installations and Live Performance Paintings. A community coming together to celebrate art."

Where: "First Friday is celebrated in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas. The hub is on Casino Center Blvd in between Colorado St and California St. with an extension on 3rd St and Colorado. We have extended First Friday to include Fremont East district with live activations and music in Get Back Alley behind Beauty Bar and The Griffin."

When: Apparently the hours vary but the event takes place on the first Friday of every month, hence the name. The hours for October 2013 were 5pm-12am (midnight).

It took quite awhile to create and collect enough merchandise to make it worth it to rent a space there as well as to find the free time for such a thing. It was $50 for a 10ft x 10ft tent space at First Friday assuming we provided our own tent/gazebo. Fortunately, we'd prepared months earlier by buying a 9x9 gazebo from a Craigslist seller for $15. Not so fortunately, we didn't have a vehicle large enough to move the amount of stuff it'd take to fill a 10x10 space so we'd have to rent that too. Worst of all, though, was that registration for First Friday always closes one week after the previous First Friday event. Sean and I rarely plan what we're doing the next day. Planning what we'd be doing or where we'd be in 3+ weeks seemed next to impossible!

It was a slow and challenging process but we finally managed to do it.

Applying:

Just before October's First Friday deadline, Sean and I got brave and submitted our application for the 1st time! We were asked for pics and a description of our store and what we sell, a bio, links for our online site, etc. It'd been several days when we heard back and were told we'd been accepted! We then sent the $50 to reserve our spot and got to planning.

Planning:

We went down to the Crown and Anchor British pub and had a business meeting over some pints of shandy, planning what we needed to prepare, pack, obtain, create, etc prior to our big night. In addition to all the things we still needed to obtain, here's the list we came up with of things we had to pack and take with us: money box (to hold change and profits in), dolly (though we ended up not needing it), 3 chairs (a spare in case Danny stopped by the booth), flood light, flashlights, black wire rack, white wire rack, the supplies we had on/in/near the white wire rack, trash can, bricks to tie tent/gazebo to, white table, black table, vanity, tent, string for tent, long extension cord, 4 way extension (multi-outlet), business cards & advertisements, candy dish, wipes, tissue, Sharpie, notepads & pens (to write what sells), scissors, tape, glue, thumb tacks, zip ties, hammer & nails (you never know!), craft supplies (to custom make things on the spot), earrings, bottle lamps, hangers for clothes, food/drink/snacks (we didn't wanna starve while there!). Of course, it was a bullet point list at the time but that'd just be a space waster here.

Preparing:

Over the next couple of weeks, we did a little shopping and picked up a few inexpensive things to make First Friday more successful for us ie: table cloths, candy for our candy dish, a mini light to make our merchandise more visible, Tupperware containers to hold and display some of our accessories.

A couple of days before the event, we made an online reservation for a Uhaul rental van to transport our stuff. The truck was $20 plus tax for a 24 hour rental and $0.59 per mile. Because of the area we'd be leaving the van unattended in, we paid an extra $10 for their loss/damage waiver. Calculating miles between Uhaul, home, and First Friday and miles per gallon, the entire rental cost-including gas- should be just under $60 (ended up being $58).

Packing:

We spent all day Thursday organizing and packing things at home so it'd be quick loading the van and we'd have a game plan once it was time to set up. We made 3 main piles: the upstairs stuff (things that were safer from pets upstairs and would be taken directly from there to the van), downstairs stuff (heavier stuff that we normally keep downstairs - more practical to take directly to the van), and the fridge (the food and drink we'd be eating while there). As we were doing this, we kept finding a million other things that still needed to be done such as printing business cards, labeling everything with price tags, and sorting things into groups of similar items so it'd be easy to navigate around our booth.

It was the middle of the night by the time we finished and we were absolutely exhausted. We had time to get some sleep but we knew it wouldn't be enough.

Game time!:

We woke up around 10:30am and got ourselves ready for the day, dressing up and eating breakfast before driving down to Uhaul to pick up our rental van at noon.

Back home with the van, we loaded everything up! We'd been a bit worried that it wouldn't all fit in but it actually only took up about half the space.

First Friday setup didn't start til 2:30pm and loading things up hadn't taken nearly as long as expected so we still had a lot of time to kill before leaving. We spent that time making a Jäger bottle lamp to take with us and try and sell alongside the other bottle lamps we'd made. Sadly, we didn't have time to prepare any other bottle lamps and we didn't have many made (due to selling some and not having/taking time to make others) so we couldn't take much variety with us but at least we could get the word out that we make and sell bottle lamps for good prices so anyone wanting them could keep us in mind when choosing who to purchase from.

On the way to First Friday, we realized we'd forgotten to get smaller bills and change for our customers. We stopped at a bank and got $40 in ones and $20 in quarters before continuing on our way.

Once we got to the Art District in downtown where First Friday was setting up, we struggled a lot to find where WE were supposed to be setting up. We finally worked out that our spot was with some of the other artists on the dirt lot on E California Ave and S Casino Center Blvd. We got our spot assignment and unloaded the truck. Then Sean went to park the truck, since we couldn't keep it there, while I started setting up. Sean got back in about 10 minutes and helped me put the gazebo together.

We were nearly 1.5 hours late arriving for set up and nothing was going as planned. Our gazebo was easy to put together (though not as easy as the sturdy fold-out ones everyone else had) but the wind was so strong we spent about an hour just trying to tie it down so that it wouldn't blow it away after we set it up! Then we realized the gazebo didn't have any metal bars going around the bottoms edges of the canopy's four sides so we had nothing to hang half of our merchandise on to display it. We finally had to give up on selling those items and just store them. While setting everything else up on tables and such, which was again tough because our space was more limited by the design of the gazebo than expected, we also had to keep an eye on and sometimes even hold the gazebo so it wouldn't blow over with the stronger, unexpected gusts of wind. During this time, around 5pm, customers started to show up. We hadn't priced anything so it was a while before we could get any sales. We finally got our crap together, though, and started selling!

I spent almost all of my down time throughout the night rearranging things and looking for spots for things I hadn't yet been able to put on display but I think the majority of the stuff we got out and for sale was ready to go and customer friendly before 6pm. That still left us a good 6 hours to bring in customers and make some money! We sold A LOT of keychains and other small accessories but didn't have room to put out many of the bigger, more valuable items that would've increased our profits greatly. Still, we made a decent enough profit and learned a lot - mainly to get a better gazebo if we plan to sell there again. One thing we were really happy about though was that most of the things we were selling protected in little ziplocs. Good thing because the wind kept blowing dirt all over everything and by the end of the night everything exposed was covered! The wind was actually so bad, Sean had to spend a good several hours holding our gazebo in place to be sure it wouldn't blow over or hurt anyone. Most other people's gazebos were doing fine, however. We just needed a much sturdier one. Besides being super windy, it got kinda cold out. I was alright but Sean had forgotten a jacket. :(

During the night, a few people we knew - Roberto, Nate, etc - passed by, surprised to see us selling there, and stopped to say hi!

Around 11pm, most other sellers were packing up. Things died down but we stuck it out for the last hour or so, finally packing up our dirty tent, paying the taxes all sellers are required to collect from their sales and pay to First Friday/government, and loading the truck just after midnight.

We'd made over $210 but after the cost of the truck, the fee for tent space at First Friday, and taxes we were left with about $100 profit minus the cost of supplies and such. We decided it was definitely not worth the effort to do the same way again but we'd learned enough to know how to do it differently and make a really good amount of profit if we really wanted to. First off, we'd much rather exhibit and sell indoors so we wouldn't have to deal with things like weather. The wind and dirt were both big issues and the cold was a minor annoyance as well. All three of those things could be remedied by selling at indoor events or indoor spots at events. Additionally, we really learned the importance of utilizing our vertical, as well as our horizontal, space. We'd meant to hang things from the gazebo but our profits were significantly affected by the fact that we weren't able to do so. The setup and packing away times took away from the value of the profit too since we put far too much time and effort in on both ends. It just didn't seem worth it for the amount we could potentially make at that particular event though we were aware that the required time for such things would significantly decrease with experience and once a pattern was developed. A more permanent location such as a store of our own in a good, visible, and busy location would be so much better and would save us from the tedious efforts of packing. If we decided to continue vending at public events though, it'd also increase our profits a lot over time if we could obtain a larger vehicle of our own such as a minivan or even a moving van to transport our things rather than having to deal with the hassle and expense of renting such a vehicle every time we want to attend an event. Other things we realized we needed to consider if planning for future events were losses accrued when dealing with the public such as items being stolen or broken, having to adjust our schedules to fit upcoming events, having to be personable and provide a more personal customer service experience than when selling online, and having to present and uphold a good public image. I'm sure there's much more to it but that's what immediately came to mind. It's also harder to reach as large of a market in person since, to an extent, you have to bring the customers in yourself (rather than having them look for you) and provide items that the customers you'll bring in (which sometimes varies by event or location) will be interested in. On the bright side, costs to the buyer can sometimes be much lower in person since fees such as shipping or listing on/selling through online websites won't apply. Overall, we deducted that First Friday would be a worthwhile endeavor for us again if we just wanted something different to do, obtained a moving vehicle, could get a tent space off of the dirt lot, just wanted some periodic advertising to get our name out there, and/or better utilized our space to sell larger and more valuable items. For the time being, however, it looks like we'll be sticking to our online sales. On that note, check us out at any of the following!:

CandyMountainCrafts.com

My eBay

Sean's eBay

Danny's eBay