Hey guys! So, Renegade Brooklyn was this past weekend, and despite awful weather, it was a pretty good time.
SATURDAY
The first day started off like the beginning of any craft fair - kinda slow. It was 11 AM, and people were still waking up, having breakfast, and relaxing before coming to check out crafty goodness, which was good because my friend Kim and I were running behind in setting up the booth.
People started pouring in around noon or so, and things just kept moving. Early on in the day cartoonist Neil Swaab (of Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles) stopped by and we had a chat; it probably didn't hurt that I'd met him at MoCCA the week before and yelled out "HEY NEIL!" without even thinking. Lots of sales, and loads of good times, until...
A SHITLOAD OF RAIN came and ruined the day around 4:30, which was a bummer because it had been a great sales day until then.
Here I am, trying to STAY POSITIVE while being totally soaked, and holding down the tent (a few tents literally flew out of their spots).
Fortunately, with the exception of me and my friend Kim, we managed to keep our gear relatively dry, and only one piece was outright ruined (and it's a size Large, so I'm gonna wash it and wear it).
So, we eventually made our way out, packed up what we could, wrapped up a few boxes with waterproof tablecloths and stowed them away, and met up with a friend to dry off, have dinner, and pass out. I had Duck Pad Thai, which was pretty tasty, and hell of rich.
The next day was definitely better weather-wise, though the sales were slightly slower - we probably did as good the whole of Sunday as we did up until 4 pm Saturday (which was a great sales day until the weather hit). However, I was kept so busy that it took me three hours to finish this sandwich:
Grilled peanut butter and banana with fluff on the side? Word.
On Sunday my Number One Fan, Sarah, came out, which always cheers me up. She's about my age, I think, and owns more SEIBEI than I do, including a lot of out of print stuff, and has the Sandwich Dinosaur in every color it's ever been in, I think? She comes out to every NYC appearance.
Also, a guy and a gal came up, told me they were huge fans, and the gal asked me to sign her Give Us A Kiss shirt. I was stoked, but a little shocked - we were trying to figure out where I should sign it, and she asked "Well, where do you usually sign your shirts?". I told her I never had before, so we settled on the inside, under the tag print.
A few people showed up at the event wearing SEIBEI stuff they'd bought from me last year, including a guy who bought a shirt from me at a show I did in Virginia last year - insane.
But enough about me. There were tons of great vendors there, including our fellow emptees buddies Sarah Hearts, and Dan of SharpShirter. I don't have any pictures of them, though, and didn't get away from my booth too much, so hopefully they'll fill in the gaps for us!
All in all, it was a fucking blast. Oh, and here's something I made just for the event, that I may tweak a little bit and sell online and in stores soon enough:
The print goes over the pockets and seams, and off the bottom. WHEEEEE!
17 Comments
godmachine said 2 months ago
Looks like loads of fun- that hoodie liiks like a winner. well done!
molasses4masses said 2 months ago
Awesome. For some reason I really enjoyed reading this and Gameyy's posts.
Derisory Designs said 2 months ago
Show looks like it was fun despite it all seibei! I met Dan from sharp shirter at a show here in philly a few weeks ago. He's a real good guy. Hopefully I'll be doing the Bust Holiday craftacular again this year and can come meet you!
seibei said 2 months ago
Yeah, Dan's a good dude.
BUST Holiday Craftacular was good, but the show I did the next day (Boston Bazaar Bizarre) was even better.
Derisory Designs said 2 months ago
Nice! I'll have to check that one out. Thanks man!
speedyjvw said 2 months ago
aw that sucks about the rain
you guys gunna be at the chicago fair in sept?
seibei said 2 months ago
SEIBEI will most likely be there, but I doubt I will. Two couples I've known for years are BOTH getting married that same weekend, so I ought to go to one of the weddings...I'm probably going to hire the woman who helped me last year to run the show, and maybe recruit an ex-girlfriend of mine who's in grad school there to help her out.
gameyy said 2 months ago
Dude, I am so stoked for you that it was a stellar show despite that crazy weather! Seems like a nightmare!
Props! Also, nice storage solution with those bins + shelves idea. I think that's a great way to go. Easy to set up and you can stack tees higher than you could by themselves...
seibei said 2 months ago
Thanks dude! Also, get stoked for Renegade Chicago - Sue (the head of Renegade) told me she's gonna have a live concert there, so traffic should be INSANE. You'll need to bring as much of your stock as you can, I'd wager.
Also, the shelving idea was totally yoinked from you. I use shelves and bins at home, so I just put two and two together when I saw the shelving in your setup. Good call - it worked out well.
horsebites said 2 months ago
Good job dude! Sucks about the rain.
At a local boutique here in Orlando (Etoille Boutique), I saw a postcard thing on the register with a pic of you eating the shit out of some tacos. It was pretty funny.
seibei said 2 months ago
weird! that was an ad I put out in Giant Robot - maybe they just cut it out of there? that's pretty rad. My face is actually covered in ketchup to look vaguely like fake blood, and that shit is tough to wash out of a beard.
gameyy said 2 months ago
Yeah dude, I saw that thing about the live bands, I'm soooo excited for it!
seibei said 2 months ago
Oh, and I forgot to mention, I saw people wearing Go Ape (a guy wearing The Ultimate Cute Shirt came and bought stuff from me), Chop Shop, Goodie Two Sleeves, Threadless, of course, and even our old pal Snorg (that was actually the first tee I saw and recognized, which I thought was kind of a bad omen).
gameyy said 2 months ago
Lol. I was on the lookout for the same! Just saw tons of threadless and some HT band stuff.
Go Ape Shirts said 2 months ago
I need to do one of these some time. They look like so much fun. I'm jealous of you guys! That's crazy you saw The Ultimate Cute Shirt! There's only maybe 10 of those out there right now.
jaynajaynajayna said 2 months ago
so you said hell of and I was like o he reads achewood and remembered this had been discussed already
LDASIA said 2 months ago
Keep it up, like the direction you're going with SEIBEI.