[Archers] Archery merchants at events

[John Atkins]

I’ve talked to several SCA friendly merchants about merchanting at SAAD, one of our larger archery centric events.  We must remember that for a merchant this is their business, not a hobby.  As such they will come IF, big if, they can make it pay.  Colum’s points are well taken in this regard.  Let’s use Greybar as an example.  For him to attend SAAD he must travel from the Ohio/Michigan area, a trip of about 8 – 12 hours.  Considering he would most likely not bring as big a set up as he does for Pennsic or Gulf Wars he would still burn a lot of gas for the trip.  Would he make enough in sales to make that pay off?  In talking with him, he feels he would not.

 

Sir Erika of Trimaris, owner of North Start Archery, runs North Star as a second business.  She is a lab biologist for her day job.  For her it is an issue of getting the time off, travel time – about 12 hours, and would it pay off?  And this considering Erika has the advantage of not only target archery but combat archery gear as well.

 

I think in the long run the issue of getting archery merchants at some of our archery centric events is a matter of “if you build it, they will come”.  We need one merchant to show up and be the baseline case for potential profitability.

 

This is exactly what has happened with food merchants at WoW.  Goode Bakery, who makes those amazing sausages in a roll at Pennsic and Gulf Wars, attended a WoW a few years back.  While their profits were not over the top, they were satisfactory.  They got run through the mill by the food inspectors and decided the facilities at Elchen were to primitive to satisfy the food police and have chosen not to return.  However, the rice bowl folks, famous from Pennsic, have attended nearly every WoW.  So in this case, a food merchant tried WoW and proved it could be profitable given the “situations” food merchants need to deal with.  We need to try this with an archery merchant.  

 

But I will add in closing, I have talked to Sir Erika, Greybar, and Elk Ridge Archery and none of them, at this point, are interested in merchanting SAAD where we have more archers than at a WoW or other like event.

 

CJg

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