Reflections of the Spring Market~

Thank you to everyone who came to our See Ya Spring Market, to those who bought my merch, and for braving the crummy weather to support myself and the other vendors!

Now that everything is said and done, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the market, and mull over my thoughts and feelings on it. Overall, I would say it went well, and I'm proud of myself! At the same time, there is a little bit of lingering disappointment, which I'll get into. I think I mentioned this in my last blog post, but this market was basically all I had been working on since the beginning of the year, and I put the most effort into it than I ever had at the previous markets I took part in.

With that said, first of all I'm a bit relieved it's over haha 😅. I launched 2 new sweaters, made 15 new stickers, 2 new keychains, and 1 new enamel pin. It was a lot of drawing, approving proofs, ordering samples- rinse and repeat. As a result, I've basically drawn like, no tattoo flash this year so far, because I've been prioritizing making merch. And I'm really proud of my merch!! But I'm also kind of disappointed with my tattoo flash output. I know I shouldn't feel that way- like, of course if I wanted to make a basically entirely new stock list for this market, most of my spare time would go to designing merch. But yeah, I can't lie, I'm happy it's all said and done and I can just get back to drawing flash and customs and focusing on tattooing ONLY lol!!

All in all the market was good! In fact, it was my most successful market to date sales-wise! However, it was also the market that I spent the most amount of money on when it came to my set up and purchasing my products. So, when you tally it all up I did actually net negative. Honestly though, I'm not that pressed about it though, because regardless my stuff sold pretty well day-of.

The weather on the day of the market was bad. And this is where I can't help but feel a little disappointed. It rained hard all day long- literally ALL day, which is kind of unusual for the weather here. Typically on a rainy it will let up at some point, but it was non-stop on the day of the market. Of course this is nobody's fault- you can't predict the weather after all- but I think it did have a significant impact on the foot traffic we got, and understandably so. Hell, if it were me, I probably would have skipped out myself, it was just so treacherous out. So I totally get it, but I can't help but think what it could have been like if it was a nice, sunny day. I think especially at this time of the year, after a long, cold winter inside, when it's a nice day people go OUT. We are just entering consistently nice weather, and people take advantage of nice days, especially nice days on the weekend, when they happen. This was not one of those days. It was a day to stay home, stay inside.

And yeah, I mean that just kind of sucks after putting in all the time, effort and money, for the weather to be shitty and deter people from coming by. But it's completely understandable, and really It wasn't all bad though. There were still lots of people who came, and I personally had former clients come by just to get something specifically from me. That is a very special feeling, and one I DO NOT take for granted!! So while it was disappointing that the weather wasn't great, my feelings towards the market are still positive overall. I just wonder how much busier it would have been if it was not monsoon-ing outside...

The only other notable thing to mention is that... I actually got a bit sick towards the end of the market and ended up throwing up in the washroom LMAO!!! Basically, to explain, at around 4pm when we had about an hour left to go, I got a baaad migraine. I get migraines chronically, and they can be triggered by different things for me (my most common trigger being dehydration), and vary quite a bit in severity. The whole day I basically ate nothing and didn't drink water, which is so stupid, but I hardly noticed because I had been talking to friends and customers and whatnot. I ended up getting a bit socially overstimulated, and that + being malnourished resulted in a migraine that was more on the extreme end. I hardly ever throw up from migraines, except the more severe ones, and unfortunately this happened to be one of those. That being said- I'VE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE, and I kind of could sense I was going to be sick, so luckily I got my ass to the washroom and threw up in the toilet. Sorry if that's a lil too much info lol.

All in all, I'm happy with how it all shook out. The weather wasn't great, and that did suck a bit, but I'm grateful for the opportunity and everyone who came out. It was a fun time!!