THE BUZZ OF THE COUNTRY SHOW

Summer time would normally be 'show season' for Dragonfly and Blossom and spending weekends in country fields and estates, sleeping in our vintage caravan, building a full sized shop for our customers to enjoy for the weekend before dismantling it late Sunday evening after the crowds have all gone home for dinner, a glass of something chilled and a bath.

It is a bitter sweet process of preparing, creating and living in the 'pop up' shop and show environment. It is great fun. The Dragonfly and Blossom team gather days before the show to pack and prepare the stock, load vans and build the structure. It is usually involves plenty of packed lunches, water containers, suncream or waterproofs (depending on the weather gods) and spreadsheets containing all the plans and timings that have been studiously worked on weeks before hand.

The sense of team work and camaraderie is brilliant and there are so many laughs along the way. Every single one of the team wants the final display to be the very best it can be, and they all know my very high standards and demands for the stand and I am often teased mercilessly for it, but they all brilliantly humour me and make the changes I so politely demand.

Once the shop structure is built, the next team move in to stock and display the merchandise making sure it is as attractive and appealing as a homeware store, which is not easy task with fine bone china in the middle of a field!

My vision for the stand is to make it an attractive and welcoming space for our customers and often there is even a welcome with a cold glass of fizz and sweets for the patient (sometimes) little ones that they have with them.

No wonder we see familiar faces year after year hey!

Show weekend can be such a different experience year on year with so many factors influencing the weekend - the weather, other events clashing and even football and a World Cup!  In one weekend we have experienced sunburn, minus temperatures over night, an electrical storm and torrential rain. Not easy to be prepared for all of this in the space of three days I can tell you.

But the one thing that stays the same is the brilliant conversations with our customers and other traders, returning visitors year on year to see and buy our products, the compliments on the stand and our new collections and the laughs and chats that happen over the whole weekend.

The flip side to all of this is just how exhausting creating the event is.

The planning starts months in advance, to ensure we have the right products and enough stock, the logistics of the transport, structure and help have been booked in, boxes packed and loaded and really heavy display structures, flooring and stock moved in and out of the van.

It takes a team of 20 to create, build and run the event smoothly and long, long hours on our feet not to mention 'problem solving' along the way. It is not unheard of to hear the statement 'why are we doing this' at least once during build week, but we all know why. That buzz of show weekend, the sense of achievement when the shop and stand looks fantastic, the glowing feedback and the happy customers with their Dragonfly and Blossom bags around the showground.

That is why we do it.

And now more than ever that buzz is missed. 2020 and 2021 have meant no summer country shows for us. Some events are happening and I hope they are a roaring success for the organisers and the visitors alike, but it was just not a feasible option for us this year with the team required and the logistics of ever moving dates. Instead we have lots of exciting work happening behind the scenes and not least this brand new website which we are incredibly proud of.

The last 18 months have given us time to reflect and adjust on some of the work and channels we are devoting our time to, but the excitement of show weekend will be something for look forward to in years to come again.

See you at the next country show, there will be a cold glass of fizz waiting for you!

 

Sarah 💛