Chris Thomas

Welcome to summer!

It was a scorcher this weekend, and once again we are reminded to take our annual pause and give thanks to the installation of fine products from the Big Ass Fan Company.  If you have not yet noticed the therefore-mentioned device, take a moment to look up the next time you step into the pavilion — you’ll be thankful, too.

The heat impacted downtown tourism this weekend, as reports from the North Shore and River Market suggested that the heat was enough to keep people indoors.  We’re certain our community will toughen-up as the summer rolls forward, but the first weekend is always a rough one.

Vendor average sales:

• River Market: $243
• Beast Feast: $496

As May concludes, our total vendor sales have reached $541,323 for this season! Darn impressive - I have some old reports somewhere which listed the full-season vendor sales at around $650-700k from just a few years ago.  Great vendors, products and customers are working towards driving those numbers up every year. 

A longer-term vendor asked me this weekend if I could provide a category breakdown on the sales averages, like I did a few years ago.  Well, I’m working on it; we moved to a much better software system for tracking the market detail, but that particular feature didn’t make it to the new home.  It’s on my list, however, and I promise to get around to it prior to 2024.

Have a great week — Big Band SwingFest! is just around the corner!

OK, I’m almost back in the swing of things — thanks to everyone who reads the weekly update for your patience;  both of you are are so kind!  (ha)

The rain knocked us a bit on Mother’s Day, but that’s the way the nature of live events:

• River Market 5/12: $215 avg sales/vendor
• Mother’s Day: $467 

Strawberry Festival popped new records, and was our second-best day in the history of the Market:

• River Market 5/13: $215 avg sales/vendor
• Strawberry Festival: $554

This upcoming weekend, The Beast Feast, is typically a nice one as well.  And as it marks the official start of the tourist season, our River Market traffic will noticeably improve.

Our new Ringgold Market will open on Saturday, June 2 from 8am until 11am.  This market is open to local farms, artists and crafts — if you would like to attend, RSVP online (same system as all of our events).  We expect it to be a small market for the first year or two, but it’s a supportive community and we’re very proud to be working with them.

Finally, I would like to share that our 2012 Vendor Sales has already reached $456,972!  It’s almost certain that we’ll break the half-million mark this upcoming weekend, which puts us on track for the best season start ever.  For comparison, our total vendor sales as of June 1, 2011 were $405,981 - almost 25% higher this year.

While I don’t expect that we’ll see that level of growth/over-performance all season, it’s certainly a feel-good moment considering the challenges we’ve all had over the last few years.  Congrats to you for providing quality products and a pleasant customer experience to our community!

Once again, my apologies for the delay in posting the Market Reports.  My home has had ongoing reconstruction activities for the last several weeks due to a water leak, and it’s simply amazing how much time gets destroyed during that process.  I can’t imagine how people who lost homes during the tornado’s must feel — devastating, I’m sure.

• River Market 5/5: $158 avg sales/vendor
• Sunday Market 5/6: $441

There was a lot going on this weekend, including Cinco de Mayo events around town; I know that our HITs 96 Running of the Chihuahuas event was well-attended and fun. 

The next several weekends are typically extremely popular: Mother’s Day, Strawberry Festival & The Beast Feast!  And with Memorial Day begins our traditional tourist season, so the River Market traffic typically jumps accordingly.

Finally, we’ve set the opening date for the Ringgold Market to be Saturday June 2.  Several farms and vendors have already expressed interest in attending, so I’m feeling fairly good about things.  Ringgold is certainly excited, and it’s nice to be working with such a supportive community.  

See you this weekend!

It’s Tuesday already?

After approximately 27 event-hours taking place over the weekend, we’re all a bit sluggish in our weekly processing of the reports and prep for the upcoming weekend.  So I’m going to keep things brief:

• 4/28 River Market & Night Market: $374 avg
• 4/29 Market: $496 avg

The pace of our markets were very enjoyable this weekend, and Sunday felt very normal and comfortable.  If you are a new vendor, Sunday is the balance we typically hope to achieve most weeks — crowded enough to be fun and profitable, but relaxed enough that people can stroll and shop.  We don’t want to have crushing crowds all of the time; those are fun, and great buzz, but would ultimately drive our core customers away.

On a related note, our 2012 Vendor Sales have already reached $227,059 as of this weekend!  Considering our first year of management posted total annual sales of just $1 million (which in itself was a record-breaking season), I’m pretty darn happy with the state of the union.

I’ve had a number of vendors indicate that they are looking forward to joining us at the Ringgold Market, which is really terrific news.  I’m still looking for one or two more full-selection produce farms to round out the product mix, but we’re ahead of schedule on our rollout.

See you on Sunday!

Last night, the Ringgold City County approved the formation and operation of The Ringgold Market — a cooperative effort between the City of Ringgold and The Chattanooga Market.  This new expansion market is intended to help with the post-tornado  efforts and help promote economic and community renewal in downtown Ringgold.

This new event is designed to be a farm & food-oriented “tailgate” market, and will be held on Saturday mornings from 8-11 in front of the historic Catoosa Court House.  The City will be providing support services (sanitation, traffic assistance, etc) and area downtown businesses & the Downtown Development Advisory Board will assist with marketing & promotional efforts.  My expectations are that this will begin as a small market, but with strong local support and solid growth potential.

Our next steps are to work with the Georgia Department of Agriculture and local health officials to make certain we understand the rules and regulations of operating a marketplace south of the border, but our hopes are to begin operations in late May.

If you are a farm or local food manufacturer that might be interested in attending this new venue, please let me know;  I’m hoping to have about a dozen vendors this first season, and would like to begin the process of planning & scheduling for the imminent grand opening!

I’ve been somewhat negligent in my tradition of sharing market reports each week, due to a variety of work and home related disruptions.  A lot of good things going, but just not enough time in the day to get everything done as hoped.  And for some reason, I think this entire season is going to be that way!

Opening Day went nearly as expected, although I believe we were all very pleasantly surprised by the sheer size of the crowds.  It not only was the largest opening day ever, but also the largest market day in our history — that was as good as it’s ever been!  Pretty amazing, and hopefully a sign of good things ahead.

2012, so far:

• 3/24 River Market, $7,800 total sales, $269 sales/vendor avg
• 3/31 River Market, $11,500, $311 avg
• 4/14 River Market, $6,150, $256 avg
• 4/21 River Market, $4,056, $290 avg

The River Market is primarily a tourist-centric market, and thus tends to have strongest sales during the tourist season — Memorial Day through Labor Day.  It’s certainly not bad at the moment, and the weather is milder… just different.

Our Sunday Market is traditionally more oriented towards the locals, although we’ve reached the size where it has become a regional tourist attraction as well.  Our product sales typically favor foods & farms during this portion of the year, but arts/crafts still can do quite well — some days better than others.

 Our average sales for this last weekend were exceptional across the board:

• 4/22 Opening Day, $104,100 total vendor sales!, $609 average sales/vendor!

Simply incredible.  For those that enjoy whacky stats, that amount works out to $5.78 per second! Local really is better!

The product categories which did well were very evenly distributed - everything from art, furniture, concessions, farms, flowers, photography, clothing, jewelry and body care products all posted above-average sales.  Overall, there were no product-specific sales spikes common with some events (like Strawberry Day or Oktoberfest); it was a well-rounded event.

The downside of having crowds that large is that it isn’t necessarily great for casual shopping; to this point, some of our vendors outside did much better than similar vendors inside…  outside was more relaxed!   I expect that we won’t see this size of crowd again for a while, so our more relaxed nature will return - and sales should improve for those products/vendors which benefit from closer vendor/customer interactions.  The crowds are exciting a buzzworthy, but not always the most profitable.

Regardless, it’s nice to start the season with a record breaker!  I look forward to seeing you again this weekend, have a great week!

Hi River Market Vendors!

We are going to be partnering with the Tennessee Aquarium and HATCH this upcoming weekend, and have been asked to encourage everyone to try to do some form of interactive arts & crafts this upcoming weekend.  For example, if you paint - perhaps you could demonstrate your art during the river market hours.

Thanks!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday break;  we’re back at work, wrapping up the final details of the 2012 season and preparing for the mad rush of preparing the printed materials, advertising campaigns and other logistics necessary to make our markets seem effortless to our customers.

I always like to look back on the past to see how we’re doing, and wanted to share a recap of the 2011 season with you.

In 2011:

• we organized sixty-eight distinct events, and held sixty seven (Arts in the Park was flooded out!)
• during those events, our vendors reported record sales of $2,085,849
• average vendor sales, across all markets/events, was $354 per vendor per day
• the worst market day was $78/vendor (a rainy River Market day); the strongest was $935 (Head of the Hooch)

The Top 5 Events, as measured by total vendor sales:

• Oktoberfest
• Mother’s Day
• Strawberry Festival
• Peach Festival
• Opening Day

Vendor sales by major category:

• farms & local food: $797,840
• artisans: $848,996
• concessions: $401,822

Due largely to the River Market and extended Holiday Market season, our artisans took the lead for the first time ever in total sales!   Local food sales continue to improve, and all indicators suggest that the upward trends should continue well into 2012.