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Thanks for the nice words and suggestions, guys. Frank, the ribbon was for my work overall as opposed to a single piece. As I mentioned yesterday, the other vendors selling wood products had good stuff, but I think I had more "showcase" pieces displayed than anyone else, and I suspect that fooled the judges enough to give me the ribbon. 
Today's single sale was about twice the dollar amount of yesterday's sales, but even at that, it was pretty much just a break-even show. All but a few vendors reported slow sales, and once again, there seemed to be no real pattern. One guy who was selling $500+ paintings did pretty well (primarily from a single sale to someone referred by a previous customer), and the guy selling paintings in the same price range next to him sold almost nothing. One booth selling $15 and $20 craft items nearly ran out of stock, but others selling similar products had slow sales all weekend. I don't think the other two turners at the show did much (if any) better than me, and they had a lot more of the $20 to $100 range than I did. The three of us had very few competing products. One guy had mostly pens, another had mostly desk accessories, bottle stoppers, and other small stuff, and I had primarily bowls and hollow forms. I sold some low-priced stuff and one higher-priced piece, so the combination of the two once again helped me out.
For this show, the "light crowd with hands in pockets" description is a good fit. If I could deposit compliments in the bank, I'd be a rich man, but not a lot of people could afford more than kind words about my work.
All in all, we had a lot of fun, despite the slow sales. I had lots of opportunity to explain how things are made on a lathe. (As you might guess, I can chat folks up about turning at the drop of a hat.) My booth neighbors probably had my "how a root ball becomes a bowl" talk memorized. We're also getting to know a lot of the other vendors as we all do the same shows together, so it's always fun catching up with everyone and seeing what's new in their worlds. And people-watching is always full of rolling eyes and winks. (There's even the occasional celeb. We saw Donna Summer and her daughter today.)
Today's single sale was about twice the dollar amount of yesterday's sales, but even at that, it was pretty much just a break-even show. All but a few vendors reported slow sales, and once again, there seemed to be no real pattern. One guy who was selling $500+ paintings did pretty well (primarily from a single sale to someone referred by a previous customer), and the guy selling paintings in the same price range next to him sold almost nothing. One booth selling $15 and $20 craft items nearly ran out of stock, but others selling similar products had slow sales all weekend. I don't think the other two turners at the show did much (if any) better than me, and they had a lot more of the $20 to $100 range than I did. The three of us had very few competing products. One guy had mostly pens, another had mostly desk accessories, bottle stoppers, and other small stuff, and I had primarily bowls and hollow forms. I sold some low-priced stuff and one higher-priced piece, so the combination of the two once again helped me out.
For this show, the "light crowd with hands in pockets" description is a good fit. If I could deposit compliments in the bank, I'd be a rich man, but not a lot of people could afford more than kind words about my work.
All in all, we had a lot of fun, despite the slow sales. I had lots of opportunity to explain how things are made on a lathe. (As you might guess, I can chat folks up about turning at the drop of a hat.) My booth neighbors probably had my "how a root ball becomes a bowl" talk memorized.
We're also getting to know a lot of the other vendors as we all do the same shows together, so it's always fun catching up with everyone and seeing what's new in their worlds. And people-watching is always full of rolling eyes and winks. (There's even the occasional celeb. We saw Donna Summer and her daughter today.)