Last fall, four of us sat around a table and discussed the future of the spring BHM show. Gather had moved out of Fountain Square Mall, which meant, it didn’t make logical sense to host the spring show in that location any longer. To be honest, FSM was never the BEST place for a spring show, but my heart has always wanted to host BHM downtown, and we weren’t ready for another Convention Center show, so FSM was really our only choice. That is until Jackie mentioned having a STREET FAIR. And that was that, folks. Jackie says it. Talia makes it happen. And a little over 6 months later . . . here we are.
This past Saturday we hosted our first BHM Summer Fair – on the (6th) street of downtown Bloomington. Was it hard? Eh, no harder than hosting/organizing any other craft show; just different hoops to jump through. We worked hand in hand with the city, Downtown Bloomington Inc and other downtown entities to make it the best Summer Fair we could. And you know what, we’ll do it again! Ha!
The learning curve for organizing this outdoor fair was definitely steeper than hosting our first spring fair inside FSM four years ago, or our first Convention Center one 8 years ago! That’s right folks – we’ve been doing this crazy thing for TEN YEARS! And we’re not stopping anytime soon!
Some highlights from BHM Summer Fair 2018:
- 40 smiling sweating amazing talented dancing faces of makers and their friends
- DJ Maddog who was the baddest most rad DJ I could ever ask for!
- beautiful henna with an amazing local henna artist
- watching kiddos at the Lotus booth!
- La Poblana and their GIANT burritos (and delish tacos)
- Cardinal Spirits lounge where I might have lounged a little too long with a few too many drinks (but then promptly sweated it all back out)
- Did I mention DJ Maddog?
- Seeing one of our emerging makers from 2016 set up a full booth at this Market and be so grateful and smiley and happy to be there!
- Getting to see Amy Kae again and find out she’s making Charlie bird feather necklaces for the next market!
- Meeting new makers for the first time and getting to introduce them to Bloomington
- THE MOST AMAZING cornbread dish from the Sandwich Spot
- Having the most rad team hold down the Merch Booth and take care of makers
- THE MUSIC
- Reconnecting with past makers and getting to see all their new work!
- this list is really endless . . . last, but not least,
- getting to carry so many of these makers in our store every day, and getting the pleasure of calling so many of them my dearest friends 🙂
So that’s a wrap for BHM Summer Fair 2018! Looks like we’ll likely be hosting our SECOND outdoor Summer Fair in June of 2019! For now, applications for the Holiday BHM are now open (click here) through July 31st!
Gather 