Worthwhile venture? (From Malvern Gazette)

Worthwhile venture?

10:05am Monday 24th December 2007 in Letters

I WILL come straight to the point! I was a recent stall holder at the Malvern Show two weeks ago. My colleague and I are from the Birmingham area so had to stay overnight. Our landlady sent me the article on the fair this week and I think you might be interested to know some more details!

It was not just rain that deterred the visitors! We had paid (for the minimal sized stall ) £349 for the two days with the incentive that this was a good price as it was the first ever Christmas fair at the site.We had pamphlets sent to us advertising the event as the " Biggest, Biggest Biggest Christmas ever ". In information sent to me , I was informed " we have the full support of The Three Counties Showground who will help market the show all year to over 300,000 visitors."

In reality, the public who attended on Saturday were about three or four hundred, the number of stalls was probably about 40 ( to be confirmed) There was no hall " dedicated to fine foods and craft stalls" , in fact there were two stalls selling food right opposite each other and there were three stalls promoting magnotherapy products .

I am not experienced at these events, unlike many of the other stall holders, who insisted on a meeting with the organiser on Saturday evening at 5pm . Many wanted some money back as they felt very let down but it was decided that he would return 25% of our money at 9am on Sunday. I accepted a cheque for the due amount and said, like others that if the attendance had not improved I would expect another 25 % refund, which he agreed to. The organiser gave me one of his last cheques to the tune of £175.50. I have to say that quite a few of the stall holders had a stall twice as big as ours and so therefore invested more than us. I just wonder how many other people will be left thinking they will never ever consider this venue as a worth while venture.

JO LATIMER, Frederick Road, Sutton Coldfield.