One Of Kind Show at Enercare Centre

We were at One of Kind winter show 2019 and I'd love to share with you my experience. So I have been hesitating for many years to participate in this show and after speaking to many vendors at my weekend markets, I decided to take the leap. I was awarded with a First-Timer-Scholarship, which means they deducted 50% of my booth fee, booths are generally 2k-10k for the 6-11 days show. You also have to account for insurance (about $200), Electricity (I was late, so about $200) and Parking (about 10-20/day). Since I have a full time job, I decided to do the 6 day show (if you do the math, it's a LOT cheaper per day to do the full show, I clearly didn't). I decided to do the second half of the show (6 days, but I heard the beginning of the show was actually busier?), we had to move in at 4am the night before. Oh joy! I am very blessed to have my fiance and friend to help with the move in to make the process much more enjoyable. There are even nap rooms for vendors, just in case. 

Few more things to factor in for me was:

a) Change room, my fiance spent about $130 at Home Depot and built one out of PVC pipes

b) Lighting (I picked up at Home Depot), Curtains (I took from my shop)

c) Carpet (Canadian Tire)

d) STOCKING UP, probably spent a solid 3 months, along with a local seamstress to make sure I have 2-3 pieces of every sizes in every style in every print 

e) Internet. FIDO data DOES NOT work at Enercare centre. It's mind boggling that every other network is ok except Rogers and Fido. I was able to pick up a SIM card at the dollar store for data the, but imagine the panic on my first day when my payment couldn't go through! I had a very lovely neighbour who tethered me. 

f) Booth sitter- Even though you technically could do the whole show yourself, having someone pop by for an hour a day really helps keep you physically and mentally. Also give you a little bit of time to check out the other vendors!

The overall feedback I received was this year was slower than the previous. It might be an economy thing but I still really enjoyed the show. Late night on Thursday and Saturday was super busy and great. On Sunday, unfortunately, there was a snow storm so I was surprised people even made the trek and near the end of the show, most of the vendors were swapping goods amongst each other (I just had to google "amongst" because it had the red squiggly line underneath, apparently this is an old fashion spelling). A huge shout of glee at the end of the market for everyone to finally go home after working 12 hour days for 11 days in a row. 

Now that I've done this once, we are coming back again for the Spring 2020 show! March 25th-March 29th. Lets hope for good weather and this whole Coronavirus to be over with! I ordered a few new prints and hoping they'll arrive in time!