At the back of the craft fair was a
booth that had no trouble drawing attention to itself. A woman was standing at
the front of the booth offering customers the opportunity to be screened for
some kind of lower-back related ailment while a large projection screen behind
her played what looked like an infomercial for her product on a constant loop. The
fact that the woman was standing on her feet and engaging customers wasn’t the
only strange thing about this booth; it was both visually and audibly stimulating.
There were two kinds of booths at
the craft fair, the booths that were trying desperately to push a product, and
the booths with an array of simple handmade crafts sprawled out on a table with
no price tags. While these two kinds of booths can be easily differentiated,
there is a slight grey area. There were several booths that sold small crafts
as a means of advertising for their business. For example, metal and wood
working stands would sell small toys and ornaments and then include their business
card in hopes of being hired by a customer for a much more profitable project.
I would not say there is any kind of
rivalry between these two groups of crafters. While the non-sales oriented
crafters probably have no interest in the entrepreneurial booths, there is
probably some kind of mutual respect for the creativity in salesmanship that
bring together all members of the craft fair community.
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