Now We Know.

Without question, we worked some seriously long hours over the past weekend.  After two sixteen hour days in a row, we were tired of pie by late Saturday night (and pie was probably tired of us).  On Friday, we made 714 tarts for a local event and it was smooth sailing through calm seas thanks to our beloved tart press.  Once we delivered those to the venue on Friday evening, we drove back to PJP Buttonwood and realized the Pajama Jam at Stoney Creek Inn was only 15 hours or away and we hadn't really decided what we were taking to sample or sell.  Sounds about right.

Obviously one of the challenges of participating in a new event is that it is all a complete unknown.  We only knew the basic premise of the event (a girl's night out, with 600 tickets sold) and that we were required to bring enough samples for everyone.  We had also been given a map of the vendor marketplace, so we had a fair idea of other vendors attending and our placement in the venue.  Which is only to say that we went back to PJP and cleaned up the mess we had made baking 714 tarts, and we then turned around and got it all back out to start making samples for 600 Pajama Jam guests and 600 three-inch tarts for purchase at $3 each.  Which, as you might guess, takes a sweet forever.

On Saturday afternoon, we set up our booth in record time and then changed into our matching pajamas...because how could we go to Pajama Jam and not?  Our friends at Fast Yeti made us the best shirts ever and we paired those shirts with pajama pants.

Because this blog is about keeping entrepreneurship real, I'll tell you that we took 600 tarts for purchase and only sold 68 over the course of the evening.  Gah.

Our samples were very well received...we wished that we had another 100 or more to give out.  It just wasn't the right venue for us to sell things.  Most people were in pajamas (duh, Pajama Jam) and didn't have cash with them.  All of the attendees were spending the night at the hotel and had seemingly brought snacks and drinks to their rooms, so they were covered on late night snacks.  It looked like a great opportunity to drink cocktails with friends and have a ton of fun...just not the best opportunity to buy pie.  So now we know.  Cocktails, yes.  Pie, not so much.  Good to know.

All that said, we had fun together in our booth (as we always do).  And we met a lot of new people and talked to those people about #worldpiedomination, which is always a win in our book.  It reminded me of when we did the Bacon and Bourbon festival last year...great chance to meet people and have fun, just not a strong focus on sales...and that's ok too.  Now that we know, we will prepare accordingly next year.  As always, two steps forward...one step back...

Also?  Massive sale on tarts this week at PJP.  Ahem.