thud

And that was the sound of the recession officially hitting the Time Travelers' business, I think. Today was the last of the Anna Maria Island Privateers' Thieves Market, and it was a dismal place. Absolutely crammed with vendors. Overflowing with people walking around. Note: not shopping. I'm pretty certain that only the food vendors did well today - from all accounts, none of the other merchants like ourselves did at all well.

It certainly was a sobering day.

Compared to the same event held in February, we did about a third of the business. Now we could argue that many of the seasonal residents have packed up and gone back north - except that there were SO many people there today! (OK, so most everyone was wearing a bathing suit; we are on the beach, after all.)

I guess that these are the tough times - whether it's the beginning of them or this is a hiccup, or it's only going to get much worse, well, you got me. I know that we are not going to be going to all the garage sales, estate sales, auctions, and rummage sales that are currently going on, because our inventory levels are just fine where they are; and I'm not too keen on putting out much more money if so much less money is going to be coming in from now on. It just seems to make sense to me right now to batten down the hatches for this ride. I keep a sharp eye on what we've sold, so in any case if we start to really run low on anything, I won't NOT go shopping.... but for now, I'm going to leave the treasure hunting to the other people out there. The treasures will just have to hunker down and wait for me to find them later.

In a couple of weeks, we'll be doing the Heirlooms and Blooms Event in Gainesville, which will be a three day show for us! Another first - a small booth space (10' x 10', just large enough for our shade canopy), so we'll bring fewer tables and hopefully have to replenish from our stock that we'll bring along to the show. Also a first in that it will be our first overnight stay away from home for show. I wonder what we'll forget to pack and bring for this one!

Shortly after that show we'll be doing another out of town event at the beginning of May at the West Palm Beach Antique Show. This is a monthly event that we'll be trying out for the first time, in the hopes of making it a regular stop on our show calendar. For this particular show we'll also take the opportunity to visit with some family on the east coast (they'll get to see what's left of us at the end of a day after a full day spent at a show!). It's not a pretty sight.

And the week after that, we'll be trying out an indoor event (this is a year of firsts for us, after all), at the Black Pearl Antique Show in Port Charlotte. This is also the first time for this show, so it's pretty exciting to get in on the initial event. This is a one day show and we'll be able to drive down and back in the same day - whew!

(You know, I really thought that the season would be over for us by now. See how much I am learning!)