Well, after reading the previous topic from the Houston Hot Sauce Festival... I think I chose the right path in being one of the vendors at the Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show at the Reliant Center that same weekend.
It was our first chance to hit a big show with our products, having done a few small ones of a few hundred people, and farmer markets.
...this was huge with over 10k in attendance, and at times it seemed like they were all in front of our booth!
I've got more pics for this, but unfortunantly there was no chance to take pics when we got busy... at one point, two cooking demos ended at the same time.
It had been semi-slow for about 10 minutes so my wife and our two helpers went on break... should have been cool since we had well over 150 sample trays ready.
...thats when all those people came directly to the booth, and went through all to ready samples in 3 1/2 minutes. Not kidding.
We had 7 people deep in a semi-circle around the booth, and within 10 minutes I sold over 100 tubs of salsa.
This is a pic of myself and my wife Laura Saturday Morning before they opened the doors for the crowds.
Speaking of our helpers... when I was up in Clinton, Iowa for about 9 months last year, my best customer was buying 4 to 10 cases of salsa every week from us and then turning around and reselling it to his friends on the railroad, local bars, stores, and friends, etc. and since we left there last October, has continued to talk about and basically promote the product on his own... with the intent of getting it selling locally up there.
This has generated 4 to 10 calls and emails every week, and is highly likely that we will be in the grocery chains up there before they finally go on sale here in Texas (been waiting for one guy to give the ok to begin shipping to a 30+ TX-LA market chain... since late May).
Anyhow, my buddy Bill ...on his own flew into Houston for the show, and worked with the airlines to be able to bring two duffle bags (50 lbs each) of salsa back to Iowa... so naturally I put him and his nephew-in-law Andrew to work.
We honestly could not have survived the show crowds if they had not shown up to help out.
What was kinda cool was the Reliant Center allowing us to pull the refridgerated trailor we had rented for the show into the building to not only unload, but was able to keep it hooked up to power and running inside the building the entire weekend. This also allowed us to run back to it to load up on more product quicker... we sold out of everything we brought by the end of the show, and Bill was able to bring the full duffle bags back home with him too.
The show was crawling with local and big name chefs, media, food company and store reps, and celebs from cooking shows on TV... the celeb for the Show was Paula Deen, who put on multiple shows on Saturday and Sunday.
...the closest I got was when she walked past our booth Saturday and said good morning... I was with a few (dozen) customers, so didn't get a chance to chat, get something signed, or get a pic with her.
Laura however, did get a chance to visit with her and her husband on Saturday, when they were leaving for the evening... and she brought some of our salsa home with her (she's holding in to the left in the pic)... and on Sunday, three of her staff members came by and bought more for the flight home.
The Show has generated so much interest (over 1900 hits to our website within the last two weeks!), we have been getting calls from new stores, and in the last week was picked up by the local Georgetown 7-Eleven convenience store.
Heck, after trying our samples and talking about our product, one of the local Houston filmed cooking shows has even asked us to come in and do a segment about the various ways salsa can be used in different recipies... they must really be desperate if they want this fatboy to chase away viewers.
The show was expensive to be a vendor, but in long-term will more than pay for itself, and have already commited to going back for next years show.
...all I need now is for my "day jobsite projects" to start up again to get some cash flow going to cover bills and new orders.
It was our first chance to hit a big show with our products, having done a few small ones of a few hundred people, and farmer markets.
...this was huge with over 10k in attendance, and at times it seemed like they were all in front of our booth!
I've got more pics for this, but unfortunantly there was no chance to take pics when we got busy... at one point, two cooking demos ended at the same time.
It had been semi-slow for about 10 minutes so my wife and our two helpers went on break... should have been cool since we had well over 150 sample trays ready.
...thats when all those people came directly to the booth, and went through all to ready samples in 3 1/2 minutes. Not kidding.
We had 7 people deep in a semi-circle around the booth, and within 10 minutes I sold over 100 tubs of salsa.
This is a pic of myself and my wife Laura Saturday Morning before they opened the doors for the crowds.
Speaking of our helpers... when I was up in Clinton, Iowa for about 9 months last year, my best customer was buying 4 to 10 cases of salsa every week from us and then turning around and reselling it to his friends on the railroad, local bars, stores, and friends, etc. and since we left there last October, has continued to talk about and basically promote the product on his own... with the intent of getting it selling locally up there.
This has generated 4 to 10 calls and emails every week, and is highly likely that we will be in the grocery chains up there before they finally go on sale here in Texas (been waiting for one guy to give the ok to begin shipping to a 30+ TX-LA market chain... since late May).
Anyhow, my buddy Bill ...on his own flew into Houston for the show, and worked with the airlines to be able to bring two duffle bags (50 lbs each) of salsa back to Iowa... so naturally I put him and his nephew-in-law Andrew to work.
We honestly could not have survived the show crowds if they had not shown up to help out.
What was kinda cool was the Reliant Center allowing us to pull the refridgerated trailor we had rented for the show into the building to not only unload, but was able to keep it hooked up to power and running inside the building the entire weekend. This also allowed us to run back to it to load up on more product quicker... we sold out of everything we brought by the end of the show, and Bill was able to bring the full duffle bags back home with him too.
The show was crawling with local and big name chefs, media, food company and store reps, and celebs from cooking shows on TV... the celeb for the Show was Paula Deen, who put on multiple shows on Saturday and Sunday.
...the closest I got was when she walked past our booth Saturday and said good morning... I was with a few (dozen) customers, so didn't get a chance to chat, get something signed, or get a pic with her.
Laura however, did get a chance to visit with her and her husband on Saturday, when they were leaving for the evening... and she brought some of our salsa home with her (she's holding in to the left in the pic)... and on Sunday, three of her staff members came by and bought more for the flight home.
The Show has generated so much interest (over 1900 hits to our website within the last two weeks!), we have been getting calls from new stores, and in the last week was picked up by the local Georgetown 7-Eleven convenience store.
Heck, after trying our samples and talking about our product, one of the local Houston filmed cooking shows has even asked us to come in and do a segment about the various ways salsa can be used in different recipies... they must really be desperate if they want this fatboy to chase away viewers.
The show was expensive to be a vendor, but in long-term will more than pay for itself, and have already commited to going back for next years show.
...all I need now is for my "day jobsite projects" to start up again to get some cash flow going to cover bills and new orders.
