Inman Park Festival: Day 2

Inman Park Festival: Day 2

I had been checking the weather forecast repeatedly up until I left my place for day two of the festival.  Not that it's been accurate for about the last month, but can't hurt, right?  On the hour by hour forecast for the 30307 zip code, the chance of rain just went up and up to 80% throughout the day.  I have a leaky tent and though I sprayed it with scotch guard, I wasn't sure how it would hold up.  It's not like I'm selling umbrellas and raincoats after all.  When I got to the festival at about 8:30 a.m., I saw about four tents on Hurt Street (oh, the irony!) that had collapsed from the rain overnight.  Here's what my tent looked like:

Dirt kicked up onto the side walls of my tent from the street by the force of the rain.

Rain that leaked through my tent onto my tables, soaking my table cloths.

The leakiest part of my tent.

Makeshift roof using a plastic painters tarp from Home Depot.

Created a very low ceiling, hoping to prevent any stray droplets from landing on my product.

From behind my consolidated display.

My consolidated display that was getting dripped on...  was considering switching to lawn and garden displays, except I like making soap too much.

It looked like it was about to clear up a bit, or at least stop raining around 11:30, which was a relief.  I consolidated my display, which I wasn't too happy about, but I figured this way it would be underneath my makeshift tarp roof and if I had to pack up quickly, I could.  It was better than my product getting ruined.  Then about an hour later, the rain started coming down steadily.  I kept moving my tables back, but with a leaky tent, there was really no way to keep my stuff from getting dripped on.  Besides that, all the samples I had out for people to pick up and sniff would just slide right out of people's fingers due to the 100% humidity and the fact that it's soap.  I made a judgement call and decided to zip up my tent and pack up my product in its vulnerable state.  In a panic, I called my friend/neighbor Scott to come and help me cart the stuff to my car.  He came, we packed it up and in an effort to salvage the day, we walked around the festival.  Though the threat of rain loomed for the rest of the day, the downpour never came and I was left feeling guilty and conflicted.  After several requests to validate my decision to Scott, Stephanie, Ben, Peter, Matt, Scott again; I decided not to beat myself up about it.  I made a decision based on circumstances I could neither control nor predict and instead, I feel like I made a hasty decision in a panic.  That's life, I guess.  I suppose I got the best of both worlds, I had a great day of selling on Saturday and then I found some great artists on Sunday.  I bought a ring with white topaz and found my new favorite artist Pete the Cat.

That noise you hear is the rain coming down - it's hard to see: