Downtown Rochester, MN holds a weekly market called Thursdays on First and 3rd. The number of people attending this market is huge and I have a number of friends who are weekly vendors there. So I thought I’d try it out and signed up for one Thursday a month through the summer months. See, we have this great farm where I have a studio, kiln and thoroughly enjoy spending my time on weekends so I figured if these Thursday events work well, I could do fewer weekend shows and spend more time where I really want to be. Make sense right??
Well… yesterday was our third time participating and I’ve concluded it is not an event for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome event. Extremely well run by the organizers, lots of great art and food vendors and since it’s right outside Mayo Clinic, it sees tons of traffic from Mayo employees and those visiting the clinic for medical care. Even with all that, I just didn’t sell much. I had plenty of time to think about why while there – maybe people who have traveled internationally to come to the clinic just don’t want to deal with dragging a piece of pottery home (I’d be happy to ship it by the way) or any of the many other reasons one could come up with. My friend who sells jewelry and beads does well and that would seem to support the reason above. Fact is it doesn’t really matter why, it’s just not working for me and it’s time to move on.
All told, I’m glad I tried the market and enjoyed the time we spent there. I met some new friends and was presented with a couple new opportunities I wouldn’t have gotten if I hadn’t been there. Gotta love silver linings.
Next time I go back to Thursdays on First and 3rd it will be as an attendee and that’s just fine.
Hope you learned something this week too. Be well.