Started off June strong with my first market at Athens Pridefest! And woah, it was an adventure. As anyone who knows me in person has already heard, Athens was fantastic even in spite of the storm!! Haha! It was an opportunity for me to test out some new booth layouts and endure a trial of rain!
Signing Up!
As y’all saw, Athens Pridefest was an impulse add to my market schedule. In the middle of May, I caught an Instagram ad that said there were still vendor spots available. A little research on their social media and it looked like Athens Pridefest was a good-sized celebration. That weekend was open for me, so I sent in an application and table payment through their website. Now, I have seen application fees before, but it’s not that often I see payment for the entire registration accepted up front. So I was a little unclear on if there was a juried process ^^; But fortunately, I did get a formal acceptance email later and even a DM on Instagram from their president! Which I embarrassingly didn’t see for a few days, I’m terrible with Instagram messages!
About a week out, we got a vendor email detailing our market layout, event schedule, social media graphics, parking recommendations, and recommendations on what to bring for the hot weather. I also always appreciate a load-in schedule, we got assigned time slots on when to drive in to ease traffic congestion.
Leading up Pridefest, the weather report wasn’t looking good. I usually like to keep an eye throughout the week before an outdoor market, and storms were predicted for much of Saturday. So with that in mind, I made a few decisions to simplify my setup just in case and I’m grateful I did! But, now that we’re through the storm, as it were, I can definitely think of even more ways to pare down! Haha! Nothing like rain and wind to help you see your priorities. Still, I’m glad to have had the foresight to not bring my large 11×17 inch prints at least.
I arrived a few hours early, having never been to Athens before I wanted the extra time to check the downtown out. The downtown area really reminded me of Savannah, which makes some sense since they’re both college towns! I played a little bit of Pokémon Go and visited Paris Banh Mi Cafe and Bakery for some bubble tea. It was really hot so I only got to explore a few blocks.
I ended up going to load-in a bit early, around 12:45, the road was already blocked off for the event so I just rolled up to the barricade and they let me in. I’m glad I did since with the heat I had to be very slow with setting up my booth to avoid heat exhaustion. Those Water Monster stations were super helpful, they were always able to provide cool water! We were required to unload our cars and park them before setting up and check in with the registration booth. I was still tidying up my booth when the attendees started rolling in around 3 PM.
The Calm…
I wasn’t sure what to expect foot traffic wise, but Pridefest certainly impressed me. Even before we were officially open folks were trickling on in and visitors continued to stop by nonstop. The festival vibes were on with live music from the main stage at the end of the market. Staff came around to offer ear plugs for the noise pollution, which I much appreciated! I already had my Loops, but you love to see event staff care about their vendors.
It took me a little longer to be happy with my setup since I was trying out a few new ideas. Such as the Z-layout which… was tricky with a 4-foot and 6-foot table under a 10-foot tent. It worked out but didn’t leave me a lot of room to wiggle behind my tables. My first note to myself was to bring two 4-foots next time.
I’d heard from a fellow vendor and friend, EJS Creations, as well as a few Instagram posts, that the Z-layout was ideal for outdoor markets when your booth was in the middle of a row. Something about the retail psychology helps customers to linger longer? I couldn’t see why this would be the case versus a U-layout but I figured Athens Pridefest would be a good time to test it out. And… it wasn’t a double-blind test but from what I could tell the layout worked really well!
I think by pushing one table up to the front, my sticker display was right up in passerbys’ faces, and once they were interested they’d be drawn into the booth. It’s a difference of a few feet but when you’re competing with a whole festival environment for attention, every little bit counts! Initially, I was concerned that a Z-layout denied passerby to take a look at all your wares in one go, but I think… something about the 1-2 step of the Z-layout trades out that advantage, and instead funnels in those who are most interested in to the rest of your wares? I’m sure there’s like… lots of proprietary research on this from marketers… It’s a little difficult to account for my own confirmation bias, but I think overall I did enjoy this Z-layout better, I just wanna simplify it more… check out my upcoming Smyrna Pride review for that!
Another new technique I had planned since my windy day at Mead and Metal, was to use clotheslines to hang up my shirts instead of clothes hangers. I researched camping knots before hand, which… may have ended up biting me a bit when it came time to pack up as fast as possible later… those knots were strong and hard to undo! But!! Before that happened, I think the clothesline method worked out fairly well. Using pins meant my shirts would no longer spin like they did with hangers, which meant less maintenance on my end to turn them back around. When it did get windy they did still blow into the tent but I don’t think that bothered visitors too much to be hit by them, I hope? ^^;
Having the shirts along the back and side wall seemed to help bring a lot more attention to them than my previous display methods. Paired with the clothes rack, I think I may have found my winning combination for outdoor shows?
I did also have to pull out the YouTube video to remember how to tie the knots the day of! I think I may need to like, make my own little instruction step-by-step illustrations >w<;;;
And my third new drop, zines!!! Originally, I planned to release my “Despite the Doom We Dare to Bloom” zines for Smyrna Pride, but since I got a couple of them ready early I brought them to Athens to test out. I put them in a box near myself for check-out, and added a sign that read “Zine Bundles, 3 dollars each or free with purchase.” It’s been a pretty long time since I tried to sell zines so I wasn’t sure what would be a good price point. I settled on this method since, unlike the rest of my merchandise, I really want to focus on distribution so they’re priced to cover printing costs.
However, as much as I would like to give my zines away for free, I didn’t want them to suffer the fate of so many fliers and just be thrown away. So, free with purchase, with the hidden rule that I only offered the zines to customers who noticed and remarked on them. The majority of people glossed them over, however the few folks who did notice them sounded really excited once I told them they were free with a purchase. I did this to increase the likelihood the zines would go with someone who’d read and hopefully even learn from them!
In practice, this distribution system seemed to work really well. My zine’s topics were “Voting in Your Local Elections” and “Contacting Your State Representatives” so I did notice the visitors who seemed most excited were usually already invested in elections ^^; But! They also usually expressed an intent to share the zine with people the know O: so a win! Sometimes, if one visitor in a group expressed interested first, the rest of the group wanted to get their freebies as well. I thought that was interesting, I didn’t think the FOMO phenomenon would apply here. Or could it be more about the fairness of getting a freebie even if you aren’t interested in the freebie itself? XD More research may be needed! Still, I think the experience of discovering the free zine bundle may also help them stick out in customers’ minds. I really hope so, especially now that I also have my third volume as well, “For Whom We Doom Scroll.”
…The Storm!
I kept checking up on my phone for weather predictions, throughout the day it said scattered storms near 5-6 PM but the sky was so clear before then! Staff did come by to let us know about the forecast and that they planned to keep Pridefest open, but we were allowed to pack up early if we weren’t comfortable with the rain. And with the mixed messages I was getting from my phone, a predicted short rain somewhere between 5-6 PM versus the thunderstorm warning alerts rolling west county by county… I too, thought perhaps with my tent I could face a drizzle with less than 10 MPH winds.
By 5 PM, the pride parade was able to go off without a drop of rain! So I think we were all high from the success and collectively ignored the very obvious, very tall, very dark, very ominous storm cloud on the horizon. I wish I would’ve thought to take a photo, it was the very stereotypical storm cloud you would see in a movie about the high seas. Looking back, what happened next would’ve been so obvious, but at the time, with all the visitors I was getting, there was hardly any time to tidy up my tent between sales, let alone pack up entirely. There is a psychological phenomenon that happens where if a group of people are able to ignore a danger, it’s much less likely any individual will seek out safety. I know now there really wasn’t any other way it would’ve played out for me. Even if I did see my booth neighbor, a student union, pack up before 5 PM because they weren’t willing to take any chances. And hey, they were the smartest of us.
The wind hit in a flash. As soon as the cloud’s shadow touched our street our booths were pelleted with sideways rain. The crowd dispersed and vendors took cover. Immediately, my clothing rack tipped over and even one of my tent’s legs started to float away! Fortunately, several kind strangers came by to help me hold down the fort as I hurriedly threw wares into boxes. One of them was a cop, who taught me it’s important to “drop” your tent to improve wind resistance! This basically means lowering your legs so that your tent top is lower to the ground. At one point, a staff member came running by to cry out that they’re calling the event! We’re packing up the market!
There’s nothing like rain to get you thinking about what’s really important! I was impressed with how I was able to stuff my boxes, since usually I have a particular order with packing. Later when I checked my merch, I was able to protect them from the worst damage since I packed them up first! My shirts did need a wash and dry cycle, but almost none of my paper products took any water! Whew!
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for a few of my displays. If you’ve seen my table you may be familiar with a few of my foam poster boards and these guys got soaked! Which was a bummer, but for the Lucky Snakes board it was an opportunity to redesign it to be smaller. I was finding its larger size cumbersome since it didn’t fit in any of my boxes so water risk had been an ongoing concern. I’ve also been sanding down my wooden sticker display. Its water damage was light but just enough that the added texture has made it a little harder to put back together.
It may have only been somewhere between 10-20 minutes, it felt so much longer, but the rain and wind started to ease up. Once my booth was mostly packed up my kind helpers said their goodbyes, leaving to look for the rest of their party. With the market closing a few hours early, everyone was filling their wagons or pulling up in their cars. For some reason, my rain-soaked self thought it made the most sense to make two wagon trips to my car. If I remember correctly, I think I did it this way to allow myself time to zone out in my car once I was done. One of those trips, I loaded both my tent and weights, but man I felt sooo strong by the time I got to my car. I even got to pick up a transgender flag someone left on the sidewalk.
It was a little frustrating to see how clear the sky was once the storm had passed XD maybe in a different timeline Athens Pride 2025 wouldn’t have had to close early. It was good to have a break so we vendors could at least pack up without rain.
I saw later that Athens Pridefest put out cancellation notices both on social media and in email. Which, probably a good call, I have no idea if that outdoor stage was still usable after getting soaked!
Billie’s Vendor Review
All in all, Athens Pridefest was a great event, despite the weather. I wish I could’ve seen it in full, but even the few hours we were open I was having a great time. If it didn’t get cut off, I suspect it would’ve been one of my best events of the year, though… technically it still was! Even with the storm, I know myself and other vendors I’d spoken to were helped by kind strangers, so it’s good to remember our community will be there for each other. I really hope I can return next year!
| Queer Pride | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Foot Traffic | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Attendee Vibes | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Restrooms | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Pokémon GO | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Organization | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Stopped by Whataburger on the way home for dinner, nothing makes a hot meal taste better than torrential rain. The fresh fries warmed me up from the inside >w< and the sun set was beautiful! Something I learned was, if you pack a car full of damp things, it will get humid enough to get condensation on your windows!!! I’d never seen that before on the inside!!!
In a way, I was a little relieved to not stay out until 10 PM, the original closing time. We’ll have to see if I can handle the 7 hour shift next year!
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