Based on my experiences, I would say that your impressions of the vendor culture are accurate. I have worked a number of UK festivals at my daughter's "Once in a Blue Moon" cafe. They trade meals with other vendors because after a few days you get tired of eating your own food. At the end of one festival, their rival (actually the Boy Scouts) had a surplus of eggs, which they split with us. The cafe, in turn, had loaned a can opener to a rival stand earlier in the festival. Other vendors often show up to help at crucial moments (like lifting the tent) during set-up or take down. I have also worked at craft shows and festivals in the USA and the same culture exists there. When I was working with a friend who makes jewelry, the vendor beside us offered to cover the booth so that we could go see the fire jugglers together. At a different festival, he traded a piece of quartz with another vendor for a something that I wanted.
If anyone is thinking about getting into the festival/craft show circuit in 2022--go for it! It is hard work but also a great adventure and incredibly fun. Best of all, you can create a magical space that will give people happy memories like the Christmas Market.
Merry Christmas to you...I raise a cup of cheer (although I doubt that I will get the same effect on the Aldi Glühwein).
TJB- As expected, and as you may have known thanks to The STSC, this essay hits a nerve with me as the child of parents who were American "monoculture/commerical" farmers and now as a native local fruit producer. The differences-income, lifestyle, venues, are very stark-and that goes for the consumer and producer ends! Your ponderings are well honed and I wanted to add some American insight into some actual answers.
1. Part of the problem I feel is that local artisan support is too much an "event". You yourself were at, it sounds like, a special Christmas time market. People view a local product as a special event, and not as the daily fabric of their lives. As you hint at, much of this is habit, and currently until voices like yours are louder, habit is controlled by the armada of "big farma" corporate food conglomerates who control government, farm bills, and tailor subsidies to the current regimen that eschews artisan culture and mastery. Now I know some critics will say that due to the cost of these artisan items, I have to make it a special event...I cannot afford to use the local farmers market or record store for my daily needs. Again though, much of the economy of scale advantage is due to subsidies (at least in the US) and lobbyist bought policies.
I have a soft modification of your point about the big conglomerates "fearing" hipster/artisan independence because it may cut into their financial bottomline. I believe the hipster mentality is demeaned and mocked because it works...but not via major profit reductions but rather because it encourages people to think for themselves. It encourages you to know who caught your fish and where they fish. It encourages you to do enough internet research to find a local blacksmith produced shovel. And yes, it will broaden your mind enough to actually eat within your locale's food season, and not insist on strawberries in the dead of winter. When you think for yourself, the algorithm has less clout and gasp, you may even turn it off. Lastly, I would be amiss if I did not mention a proponent of your mentioned type of life, and that is the late David Fleming who wrote the immense "Lean Logic", and its partner synopsis by Shaun Chamberlin, "Surviving the Future-Culture, Carnival, and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy". Thank you for this piece and the daring to simply say, "What if?" That really is the first step.
I recommend Paul Wheatons book , building a better world in our own back yards.
And I need you to write an article on how carnies fit into all this.
Based on my experiences, I would say that your impressions of the vendor culture are accurate. I have worked a number of UK festivals at my daughter's "Once in a Blue Moon" cafe. They trade meals with other vendors because after a few days you get tired of eating your own food. At the end of one festival, their rival (actually the Boy Scouts) had a surplus of eggs, which they split with us. The cafe, in turn, had loaned a can opener to a rival stand earlier in the festival. Other vendors often show up to help at crucial moments (like lifting the tent) during set-up or take down. I have also worked at craft shows and festivals in the USA and the same culture exists there. When I was working with a friend who makes jewelry, the vendor beside us offered to cover the booth so that we could go see the fire jugglers together. At a different festival, he traded a piece of quartz with another vendor for a something that I wanted.
If anyone is thinking about getting into the festival/craft show circuit in 2022--go for it! It is hard work but also a great adventure and incredibly fun. Best of all, you can create a magical space that will give people happy memories like the Christmas Market.
Merry Christmas to you...I raise a cup of cheer (although I doubt that I will get the same effect on the Aldi Glühwein).
TJB- As expected, and as you may have known thanks to The STSC, this essay hits a nerve with me as the child of parents who were American "monoculture/commerical" farmers and now as a native local fruit producer. The differences-income, lifestyle, venues, are very stark-and that goes for the consumer and producer ends! Your ponderings are well honed and I wanted to add some American insight into some actual answers.
1. Part of the problem I feel is that local artisan support is too much an "event". You yourself were at, it sounds like, a special Christmas time market. People view a local product as a special event, and not as the daily fabric of their lives. As you hint at, much of this is habit, and currently until voices like yours are louder, habit is controlled by the armada of "big farma" corporate food conglomerates who control government, farm bills, and tailor subsidies to the current regimen that eschews artisan culture and mastery. Now I know some critics will say that due to the cost of these artisan items, I have to make it a special event...I cannot afford to use the local farmers market or record store for my daily needs. Again though, much of the economy of scale advantage is due to subsidies (at least in the US) and lobbyist bought policies.
I have a soft modification of your point about the big conglomerates "fearing" hipster/artisan independence because it may cut into their financial bottomline. I believe the hipster mentality is demeaned and mocked because it works...but not via major profit reductions but rather because it encourages people to think for themselves. It encourages you to know who caught your fish and where they fish. It encourages you to do enough internet research to find a local blacksmith produced shovel. And yes, it will broaden your mind enough to actually eat within your locale's food season, and not insist on strawberries in the dead of winter. When you think for yourself, the algorithm has less clout and gasp, you may even turn it off. Lastly, I would be amiss if I did not mention a proponent of your mentioned type of life, and that is the late David Fleming who wrote the immense "Lean Logic", and its partner synopsis by Shaun Chamberlin, "Surviving the Future-Culture, Carnival, and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy". Thank you for this piece and the daring to simply say, "What if?" That really is the first step.
Merry Christmas to you too Tom, one of the happy few who carries the Christmas spirit all year round !