Opportunity Lost

[Jay H]

My town has a rather large BBQ festival every year. It was this weekend. Although my store is located downtown, the festival never has made it down toward me. I though something was amiss when they set up portajohns in front of my store Friday morning. Well when I got there Saturday afternoon, I learned they had moved the carshow to my street. It was about 4 blocks and about 300 cars entered. My block was at the far end of the carshow but still there was a heck of a crowd running through there all day.

At this point, I don’t have the slightest clue what I’ll do next year but you can’t bet that I won’t be closed. I hope to have some items specifically to offer “car guys”.

Also there wasn’t any food vendors this far down so certainly I can offer cokes and water if nothing else. After all I am in the “Coke Cola” building (duhh).

My building is the tall dark one on the right.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/greatangles/carsstore1.jpg

Here was one block down and again, I’m the tall dark on the right (way back in the back).

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/greatangles/carstore2.jpg

I have a few ideas. Has anybody else been able to capitalize in a situation like this?

[Maryann]

We have a "Corn Festival" in town the last Saturday of August. The main street is closed and filled with food and craft vendors. About 40-50,000 people converge on our small town (population 6,000). The vendors line the streets and basically block the store fronts.** I put large signs in the middle of the street (atg'ed to trash cans) FREE ICE WATER AT BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY). We have a five gallon jug of ice water with lemon and normally have 300-500 people come in for water and hang out in the air conditioning where they're forced to browse around. We can keep count of the number of people by the number of plastic cups used. Some buy little gifts or prints, some return later. We basically take in no framing that day but the pr and exposure is good.

**the two vendors in front of our store front leave a path so people can get through in return for using our bathroom. A good deal for all. ;-)

[DTWDSM]

Jay,

There is a gallery here in town that sells this artist and seems to do ok with it. They also go to car shows and set up a booth so i would guess it does ok for them.

http://www.oldcarart.com/

[Bob Carter]

Hey Jay-I would get some great photos/images of some of these cars and print them on the wide format with great looking displays for next go around

Knowing these car guys I might get a couple of good looking "mechanic types" with T-shirts that emblazon "Jay's Great Angles" across them to help "drive" traffic

These cars are really labors of love for a many of these folks. I'll bet a wide format print on canvas costs a lot less than a wheel and they have little problem dropping some bucks for some mags

[PaulSF]

Jay, before you invest in car stuff, contact the event organizers and try to get a firm commitment from them as to what will be situated by your store. You don't want to spend alot of car stuff only to find that the car show is at the other end next year.

[JFeig]

Jay,

We have had a little car show in front of my shop for 10 years. http://www.woodwarddreamcruise.com/ They have in excess of 1,000,000 visitors at the event.

As far as my experience is for this event.... "Do you have a bathroom I can use?" is the # 1 question I hear from people walk into my shop.

For 2 years I even placed out stuff on the sidewalk for people to look through.

[FramerPhil]

Maryann, I graduated from Shippensburg a couple years ago, and I remember the corn festival. That little town is crazy that weekend. That is definitely good exposure for you. Sometimes I miss that little town in Central PA.

[BILL WARD]

[QUOTE=J "Do you have a bathroom I can use?" [/QUOTE]

do like they do in UK---chage em 10P(or so) for a pee!!! help pay for the upkeep/H2o!

[JFeig]

Bill,

I remember when pay toilets were common in public buildings here in the US.