More New Festival Frustrations
Over the weekend we went out to Songwood to talk to the owner and stake out our booth. I've already told this story. Well, on Monday I called the "head guy" to ask that he go and tell us if our booth is in the way, in the wrong place, in the middle of the street, whatever. He said he'd call me back in an hour after he'd looked at it.
He didn't call me back.
So yesterday I call him and ask him if where we've staked out for our booth is okay.
He proceeds to ream me a new asshole. Despite the fact that I apologized publically on the forum for the negativity, and depite the fact that I haven't said a WORD about how crappily I've been treated thus far, he seems to be dwelling on the fact that I made that post a few weeks ago and can't let it go. He seemed to forget that I've been to the site and seen what has and has not been done, that I know exactly what is going on there. He kept asking if I'd built a site up from nothing and I said, "Well, I did that at Excalibur..." where he cut me off and said, "I'm so sick of hearing people tell us about Excalibur! Excalibur was a failure!" I corrected him and said that Excalibur hadn't failed, they'd been kicked off of their land. Big difference.
He continued with asking me, "Who do you think you are, saying all this. I need positivity from my people, not this negativity you're coming in with." He kept on and on, even though again I've not said anything negative after that one post I apologized for PUBLICALLY. Everything else has been positive. He pointed out that we blocked someone in and I pointed out that we'd asked numerous times for a front space that he repeatedly told us he'd already staked out a great spot for us and it was cleared, but when we got there he led us to a BACK space that WAS NOT cleared and was NOT what we'd asked for. He then told me we should have come to stake our spot out sooner, to which I pointed out that Mark and Anthony had done just that to find no one on site to tell them where was okay and instead found a mudhole with little to nothing done.
He then proceeded to tell me that they didn't really need Mark to be the Blacksmith, that they could get anyone but they like his work. And they like my work, too. And that I'd be an asset, as would Mark, which is why they want us at their festival.
The entire encounter really upset me. I called Anthony right after and spoke with him about it, telling him that I didn't want to do this festival and that I really would prefer that if I'm not going to do it, that he not do it either, that I really need his support on this. He told me not to worry, "Fuck 'em. We can find other things to do." I told him that I know he'd like to support his high school friend by working with him, but it's more important that he side with me on this one no matter if his friend is desperate or not.
When I got home, he changed his tune a bit with the, "We'll see. Let's think about it a bit." Which frustrated me to no end. I was under the impression that he was supporting me no matter what. I went to bed confused by all of this, so this morning I spoke with him again about it and he suprised me, like he always does.
He said, "You can do what you want. If you don't want to do this festival, then don't do it. And if you don't want me to do this festival, I won't do it. We will find other craft shows to do to show your inventory. We'll keep doing TRF. We'll put things up all over the internet. I just think that you should think on it over the weekend."
Whew.
I'm still thinking on it. I will point out that I've still got the same concerns about regretting not doing this show, but at the same time, I'm not sure how up to making inventory I am at this time. I'm also worried that if we back out on this, that we won't be allowed to join at a later date, though I could be very wrong about that because the owner guy is greedy and might just want the money. I'm pretty sure I won't be the only vendor backing out, though, if I decided to do so at this time.
So, yeah, that's where we are. I also want to talk to Mark because I found out that another Blacksmith has already been accepted into the show and I want to see how he feels about that. It's listed on the web page.
Hrm.