Queenscliff music festival is legendary in Victoria as the blurb below says:
Minister for Tourism and Major Events Tim Holding came as a special guest of the festival and in his address made particular mention of the award winning nature of this festival which being in the Victorian Tourism Hall of Fame for the most significant Festival and Event in the state, also holds a national title for the same award and was this year nominated in the prestigious Helpmann Awards for Best contemporary Music Festival. Tim was impressed by the way the Festival integrates the township, and generates widespread and lasting benefits to the town and the region.
We arrived at our spot at 7.30am with the view that we had to be up and ready to trade by 9.00am when the festival kicked off. So after a round of coffees to wake us up after the 1hour 30 minute drive from Melbourne we got started. The first thing to mention is that it was a beautiful morning, clear blue skies, but there was evidence of a significant rainfall and storm the previous night. Some of the food stalls had blown over, but the forecast had been for fine weather on Saturday, and rain showers on Sunday, so we were happy.
Thanks to our earlier preparation and 4 focused individuals working in sync and harmony, we were able to get the tent up by the 9.00am deadline. Here is what it looked like:
This is the front, A frames to the left, tables to right
Looking from side towards the entrance of the festival
Inside, the A frames looking great
Mike and Amanda next to changing area and wearing their Larrakin tops.
Pretty quiet until 11.30ish, people brushing themselves down after a long night the previous evening no doubt. And then we started getting people walking in, feeling the clothes and then at around Midday, we sold our first item to a member of the general public. It was an Amanda sweatshirt!
What became very obvious from the get go, is that there are significantly more women that browse than men. It also became evident that Mike and I were more than likely scaring these customers away, when we were in the tent. So pretty quickly we decided that Juliet and Amanda would be front of house and we would be back of house support.
Things were bubbling along well, customers coming in, the wind getting up and cooling the street down, and really positive feedback.
Then the wind really started to rage, the sky changed colour and at 2.00pm when the street was packed with people, it started to rain. I return to the Queenscliff web site review at this point:
With healthy ticket sales and great undercover venues, the euphoric crowds embraced the drought breaking rain on Saturday
Yes, you read that right.... "drought breaking rain" On our launch.
It was pretty grim
And at this point we wished we had made up some Larrakin umbrellas.
The rain did not stop until Sunday, by which time a lot of the festival goers had left.
We learned a great deal from the two days:
1) Women prefer buying clothes from women.
2) We needed a different way to hang our clothes. A table is not good enough and in high winds gets blown away.
3) We need to communicate that all our products are made in Australia
4) Customers loved our products, the quality, the classic cuts.
5) Rain kills footfall at markets
6) We do sell to our target demographic, but there were not enough of them around before the rain fell.
7) The name and logo was universally liked, subtle but strong.
In conclusion we were amazed, happy and knackered that we had managed to deliver against our goal of having a range of quality, classic, clothes all made in Australia and that although the weather had been against us, we sold to people that had never heard of us.
In life, you sometimes have to put yourselves out there to see what you are made of. We did and on this occasion were not found wanting.
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