The final day of the final event of the 2025 arts and crafts show season has come and gone.
All that remains now is to finish unpacking the show bins, organize and put away all the event stuff stuff for the winter — our next event is unlikely to be until April or May — and then do a bit of a post-mortem on what went well and what didn't go so well.
And, of course, take inventory and make sure it matches the stock listed on Etsy... and then start on the long process of re-stocking any "holes."
There's always the possibility that we'll end up with a few late sales from the Etsy shop — given how many cards and other promo materials we handed out over the past couple of weekends — but it will likely be relatively minor.
I find myself surprisingly happy to be able to say that this year's holiday sales were actually quite robust. With all the nonsense going on with the government shutdown and increased shipping prices... and people generally battling to afford their basic lives (let alone buying ART!) in a pretty inflationary environment we did better than I would have expected.
And I am very grateful for that, especially considering that we are among the people who are "battling to afford their lives."
Sure, the economic conditions made themselves known in the sense that we sold virtually none of the larger $75.00+ pieces... normally we sell at least a few. I get that, though... who pays $150 for a painted rock???
Just kidding...
On the whole, people seemed to be in a pretty good mood, although I have to admit that quite a few were just wandering aimlessly, looking at vendors' booths... one of the ways to sense how things are going is often to look at how many are carrying bags and items, and there were a lot of empty hands.
But at least this last event was well attended, and we seemed to be having a more positive experience than some of the "old timers," including one woman for whom this was her 33rd time to attend this particular event.
For comparison, our own first attendance to this show was in 2015!
We still haven't cracked the secret to better online sales, so that's an ambition that gets rolled over into 2026.
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
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2025.12.17 AS-TXT-351/321