Marietta the Gathering was a wonderful show! I’ve vended with them every year so far and it just gets bigger and better. I’m excited to share my first blog review of my Marietta the Gathering experience with y’all today!
Prelude to Gathering
Vendor sign-ups for Marietta the Gathering opened in October on the Marietta city government website. As a previous vendor, I was included in an email blast that let us know the day sign-ups were up. I was happy to see they upgraded to a digital form this year instead of a pdf download! Though pdf forms were still available for anyone who preferred that application method. I applied for my usual booth size, the $100 10×10 space, and got my acceptance within an hour! I’m not sure how long confirmations came around for everyone else, but originally applications were stated to be open until Feb 7th.
This year I also went to Marietta the Gathering Meets, a meet-and-greet hosted at City Hall for the vendors, panelists, and participants. I had missed last year’s, and wanted to engage in the networking opportunity. Though I’ll admit I was partially tempted to come out for the promise of food and boy did they deliver! Catering was through, Season: a Chef’s Kitchen, a new local restaurant. They brought a huge charcuterie spread with sandwiches, salads, meats, and cheeses, and a tamale table with beef, chicken and vegan options. I appreciate that the Marietta Parks and Rec department used this as an opportunity to showcase a local business! It was nice to put names to faces, speak to our event organizers in person, and meet other participants. Especially since vendors usually don’t get to do much walking around the day of the event.
The Gathering
Fortunately, I’m very familiar with Marietta Square so I had no trouble with load-in. We were given directions on where to drive in cars depending on which street your booth assignment was and to a parking lot reserved for vendors. On arrival, police officers and event staff guided traffic quite smoothly. I was able to upload right at my tent spot, find nearby parking, and come back to set up no problem! My sister, Kafaid, had surprised me by being mostly set-up by the time I got there, and I got there around 8 AM! I thought I was early, but it seemed many vendors had taken advantage of the 5:30 AM load-in start time.
While the Gathering was slated to start at 10 AM, we did get quite a few early bird visitors coming through since both the nearby weekly farmers and artisans markets were already open! Both markets were in walking distance of the square so there were pedestrians drawn in by curiosity. Maybe that’d be good to keep in mind next time I have an outdoor Saturday Marietta Square event.
Since I got a corner booth, it’s my first time trying an L-shaped layout for an outdoor market, and I think it went pretty well.
You’d think I learned how to deal with wind in December, but oh boy, it was Twister up in Marietta Square. Weather reports said wind speeds reached up to 20 mph and I believe it! I don’t think I’ve ever been so alert for a whole market’s run, I just always had to be ready to grab my table’s displays or tent before the wind blew them away. As the day went on I collapsed more and more of my booth, I even packed up my shirts entirely because they turned into sails. I’ll have to be more mindful to check wind speeds before an outdoor show from now on, anything above 10 mph is detrimental to my current t-shirts setup. A few times I’d even had stickers fly away, but there was always a kind stranger who spotted and caught them just in time. Desperately I dug through my supplies for any binder clips, clothes pins, or rubber bands I could use to bundle my merch together. I was lucky enough that when I counted my inventory afterwards, I didn’t have any stock missing, even though I was fully expecting it!
I was so grateful to have my 80 pound tent weights, but there were times when I wondered if it would be enough! I’m glad I took down my tent wall in the morning to reduce the wind risk. Thankfully, I wasn’t witness to any runaway tents that day, even if there were vendors without tent weights at all O_O the terror! The tempting of fate!!! A few of us vendors did end up packing a little before 7 pm when the weather report claimed that wind gusts would only pick up into the evening. I didn’t want to risk that when traffic was already slowing down with the sun setting.
Marietta the Gathering: The Third Act was my first time participating in an artist stamp rally, organized by my friend Molley B Art! Our whole gang was made up of: Kafaid, Flabbermouse, Honey Peach Studio, and Star Station Co. Through democracy we decided that our theme would be cosplay cats with snacks and that we’d each draw our own sticker to go in a final sticker prize pack. Customers would be able to collect stamps once they made a purchase at our booth, and collecting all the stamps awarded them the stickers prize! My sister even made me a wooden stamp with my logo, when I was ready to just bring my Madoka Magica licensed stamp, haha.
I found the rally to be helpful in drawing traffic, especially since my sister and I were neighbors and we could easily direct participants together. Interest in the stamp rally was definitely highest in the morning, when the day was still young, and customers were most excited to see the rest of Marietta Square by my hypothesis. By the evening, most passersby had already made a few purchases and weren’t as willing to commit to a whole stamp rally I think. I can see why the stamp rally is a popular tool in the Artist Alley now!
Despite the weather, this year was my highest performing of the three years Marietta the Gathering has been running. I wasn’t able to leave my tent much at all since I needed to protect it from the wind, but the crowds were fairly large during the day only slowing down as we got closer to sunset. I know the artist alley also got to expand by a whole street as well, so the city’s just building the event bigger and bigger. Plus, it helps that Marietta Square is already a place people congregate on during the weekends, so it has its regular traffic.
Attendees were fairly diverse, though I imagine most of them were probably within driving distance of Marietta. There were families with children, young through middle-aged adults, many dogs as well. I’d say there were many people who were familiar with how comic and anime conventions go, since Marietta the Gathering markets itself as an outdoor nerdy event.
Billie’s Vendor Rating
| Cosplay | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Foot Traffic | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Attendee Vibes | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Restrooms | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Pokémon GO | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Marietta the Gathering was my first outdoor market back in 2023 and I have to say it’s still one of my favorite shows of the year! I’d highly recommend it if you’re a local vendor or at least within Georgia. I’m planning to keep a look out for the Harvest Fest as well, which is an October event run by the Marietta Parks and Rec department, fingers crossed!
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