The Fancy Flea's foray into Plant City for the November show at the Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds was an unmitigated disaster. I will never do another show with this promoter again. Woodstock in 1969 had better planning [and a lot more porta-potties.] In fact the show organization was a blueprint for how not to plan an event.
To be honest, Lori's disorganization with this show is legendary. But we vendors put up with it because we made so much money and we were in the safety net of Lakeland services. We promoted it by word of mouth and on Facebook. We told our friends to come and exhibit. While many vendors are putting a happy face on and saying nice things on Facebook, the customers who came are not.
Perhaps under pressure some vendors have removed photos from Facebook showing long lines waiting for one of the filthy porta-potties. But the truth must come out. I'm sure this list isn't complete but this is a start.
Check out the FB posts before you read the rest.
Dealer Concerns
- Where was the show? Dealers were driving around in circles looking for the event simply to set up on Friday. If we couldn't find it, how were customers supposed to?
- There were no signs except for a copy cat market that did manage to put some out and advertise on Craigslist.
- This is Florida. We have fire ants. Some people are allergic to their bites. We treat the ground with Amdro. Unless you are the Fancy Flea.
- The spaces were too small. This was not a craft show. Dealers needed to merchandise their booths. We were in a HUGE fairground, for pete's sake! We do other shows and get more room. The police got involved when a couple of dealers began to argue over water pouring from one's tent onto another's table.
- There was no plan for parking or anyone managing traffic flow in the dealer parking area.
- There was no advertising. We were told there would be a full page ad in the Flea Market Style issue coming out right before the show. Nada
- All social media about the show from the promoter was seriously out of date or inaccurate. No one monitored the Facebook page to answer customer questions.
- The aisles were too narrow for more than one truck at a time.
- People who paid for electricity didn't always have current.
- There was no traffic management. Some thoughtless individuals blocked the view of other vendors with U-haul trailers ALL DAY LONG. Some people where asked to move others were ignored.
- There was no planning for a traffic pattern to enter or leave. At the end of the show a police car stopped all traffic to figure this out and open a back gate our of the event. This was just for the vendors. In the morning I mistakenly ended up in handicapped parking and heard someone say "We've got to get a handle on this parking." Ya' think?
- There was no plan B in case of bad weather. Apparently some people got hay to cover the mud. I didn't see any.
- Customers had to wait in the rain to enter and then THE GATE HAD NO CHANGE AS PEOPLE TRIED TO PAY TO GET IN.
- There were supposed to be tickets given to vendors so porters could deliver furniture to cars.
- Who are these porters I heard about? And the tickets? I never saw one.
- Vendors were turned away if they arrived after the closing of setup the day before the show. Seriously, has this woman ever done a show more than 50 miles from home?
- There was no wi-fi or ATM's.
- There was no dealer rest area as in recent years. With the long lines at the porta-potties, one dealer reportedly went 16 hours without visiting a restroom.
- If a family a reunion can get a block of hotel rooms at a special rate, why couldn't a show with 400 vendors?
Safety and Basic Services
- Vendors had no contact information in the event of an on-site emergency.
- Wheelchair access was non-existant and not announced.
- There were only 8 porta-potties for the whole event! For a 7 hour event with 2,000 people there should have been 18. Because many vendors had 2-3 people with them, there were probably at least 1,000 vendor bodies alone. To make matters worse, the porta-potties were located in muddy areas and the trucks to empty and clean them had problems due to the mud.
- The porta-potties were filthy.
- There was no loudspeaker system for announcements. [Woodstock had one in 1969.]
- There was not first aid tent or any medical personnel as there should be for a crowd of the size at the event.
- Emergency vehicle access, if needed would have been limited by the width of the aisles and the randomly parked vehicles. With no loudspeaker, getting them moved would have taken time. Time is muscle in the event of a heart attack.
- The back gate was locked all day.
- There we very few trash receptacles apparently because they didn't have the staff to put them out.
All in all
- We were lucky the turnout was poor. It could have been much worse.
- Some PR firm is going to make a ton of money fixing this. If that is possible.
