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Last Saturday I attended the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival in Westminster, South Carolina.  The festival is in its fourth year, and it was a bustling, fun event—a good model for how small town festivals should be.

There were some hiccups over the summer, with vendor packets (my own included) getting lost in the mail and the festival’s website disappearing for a couple of weeks.  The event organizers weren’t responding to e-mails, and I thought for awhile that maybe the whole thing had been shuttered.

Fortunately, that was not the case, and the festival organizers got everything working again.  I paid my vendor fee using some Discover Card cashback, and went up to Westminster after school on Friday, 13 October 2023 (spooky!).

My neighbors went up ahead of me, on Thursday, 12 October 2023, and picked up my vendor packet for me during the day Friday.  We stayed in adjacent campsites at Chau-Ram County Park, a beautiful park near waterfalls—and just $25 a night!

I made a critical error, however:  I should have taken off last Friday.  Because I was unable to attend the festival Friday, the vendor organizer put me down a little side street.  I was super close to the main strip, but just far enough away that most folks didn’t even realize my tent was there.

Needless to say, it was not a strong sale’s day.  Indeed, I only sold one painting, to a sweet little girl who loves the Loch Ness monster.  She purchased a painting I’d done of a strange aquatic animal, which she liked because it resembled Nessie.

I shared my vendor spot with the wife my neighbor’s family, and she was selling really cool crochet hats.  I figured she’d do a killing, as the hats were really well done, but she did not make a single sale.

In that regard, the festival was a disappointment.  As for the festival itself, though, it was an absolute blast.

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