Publicizing events at Farmers Market – Event Day

By the time I reached the market, Sanjeev had already set up the table. Geeta came around the same time I reached. We had good neighbors on both side, on one side was the cloth seller and other was the community radio KO-OP. Here is a list of things I re collect from the day.

• The lady who organizes farmers market is truly sweet and very very accommodating.
• People who visited the market during the morning 9:00AM-10:00AM were mostly interested in grabbing veggies and fruits and very few stopped by our booth.
• For a lot of other folks it was a family outing with kids and dogs and they weren’t interested in us either. In short our target audience was pretty narrow.  
• Our neighbors from KOOP studio told us it usually takes a few weeks before it registers into people’s mind that we do exist. 
• I realized it is tough to get people’s attention, even with free food to offer. We started of by asking people “would you be interested in learning about yoga and meditation” and modified over time to “would you like to try our food” and tried to sneak in a flyer while they were enjoying the food  
• We encountered the whole spectrum in the market. Some donated generously for small things, while some took all we had to offer and didn’t drop a dime into our donation box.
• There was one lady who mentioned she has seen our center on N. Lamar Blvd.
• I remember one young girl walking from stall to stall asking stall owners if they were interested in the $2 hibiscus tea, I figured that was one way to keep the kids busy on a Saturday. I think she was an obedient daughter for she came around couple of times to see if we had changed our minds about the tea.      
• Texas heat was brutal, it was bearable in the morning but became real bane by afternoon. Thanks to our neighbors we managed to get some shade every now and then.  
• I was amazed to hear that our neighbor cloth seller lady was a barsana dham devotee and she moved to Austin for that sole reason.
• In hindsight I think people had trouble understanding vegetable puffs, we had to explain it as vegetable lean pockets but made at home (just my opinion).
• Juice became a dare, it was a big hit amongst us who were tabling the event and the few who drank it, but most people refused to try the juice. Those who tried were completely blown away when we mentioned the ingredients.  
• Henna was a hit, Geeta is really talented. She truly catered to her customers with each one getting a unique design to fit their personality. It seemed to me that she has already planned for a alternate career, if ever the need arises.
• By the time we were done, we had given away almost all puffs and devoured the juice ourselves completely.
• One last thing I learnt was it was not sufficient to buy the canopy sold in the market to get shade at the table, we need some heavy objects to ground the canopy and prevent it from flying. 

All in all it was a unique experience, would I do it again? yes, but not in the same scale and would like to get more people involved. It would have been really nice to rotate people at the table.