Vintage of the Day - It's SEASON OPENER Sunday
The 3rd Sunday in April begins my vintage market in Chicago.
Being the first show of the year, it's usually busy UNLESS it's cold. Today, they are calling for 60 degrees, tomorrow 70, Saturday 58 and Sunday 45. That's COLD.
In case you didn't know Vintage Garage Chicago takes place in an actual parking garage. It's a 6 story structure and we use the first 2 floors for the show. Dealers rent booth space and customers pay admission. The opener can bring over 3000 people.
It's really hard to maintain a consistent monthly event in Chicago. The competition is fierce. You can choose a street festival or special events anywhere and any weekend. The fact that people pick us to spend their Sunday? I'm proud. We are situated right next to Argyle street which is "Little Asia". It's a perfect day to spend in a residential area of Chicago. Not the touristy areas.
Food and Vintage? What else do you want?!
We don't have much of an advertising budget and I use the majority of that online. That's where our customers are. If you see above this is the type of promotion I work on. It's unique and I hunt for cool pics everywhere so I'm rarely using what anyone else would be. (How do you like this one @xntryk1 )
Print is too difficult to gauge results. I run in a local Northside paper and we also pass out promotional cards to various antique malls and shops all over the place. We'll even go to Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan to pass out cards.
Here's this year's card. It's usually 4x6 postcard size but for the sake of showing you I resized.
This is a passionate group of people. They come rain or shine. We are grateful and hope to built more vintage lovers for generations to come.
Wish me luck! All kinds of crazy things can happen and usually do. We've got a short load in window. That means dealers start pulling in at 6am and we open at 10am. It's tight fast and often cranky. When the customers come and start buying, attitudes change quick :)
I'll give a show report next week!
Looks like an awesome marketplace, never been to something like that, looks fun! Good luck on sales and having a good day!
Thanks, it is a lot of fun and there's lots of interesting loot to be found! I've found some real treasures myself to make a few bucks on :)
Have a great show! My season starts next month. I live far more North than you....too cold for markets here...we still have snow everywhere!
For the first time in show history, I just moved it to April 22nd. We are lucky we can do it, they are calling for 37 and freezing rain. That makes it 27 degrees in the Garage. I felt like it was safer, all the vendors and staff are in there for 12 to 16 hours.
Smart. It is snowing here right now as I type...this is the never ending winter.
Ah there you go I found it, looks crazy cool idea, we don't have any indoor one's here, the Poles are not afraid of the cold, I guess they are more than used to it, unlike me, have a great weekend, and a cracking sales Sunday.
The biggest problem we have is that concrete. It holds the cold like you wouldn't believe. Our first show in the freezing cold about 6 years ago, 4 of us including me got hypothermia! So it's important that I tell everyone how to dress for this. It's actually 10 degrees colder in there than outside. In the summer it's great :)