This was something that came out of the blue, when Postive Vibrations approached me to have a stall at their Festival of Reggae event, I couldn't think of a reason to say No so I said Yes!!!

However on the 1st day I almost didn't make it...

Now some of you who know me well may at this point be scratching your head thinking, why is Joolz doing a Festival of Reggae?

This is because of the following:

1. Festivals are not my thing, the whole crowds of lots of people in small confined spaces, leaves me cold and don't get me start with the toilet situation, and
2. Although I have very eclectic music tastes, reggae is not my goto genre

That said when the organisers approached me back in July, I think the fact that I would be away from the main stage and that approximately 4000 people would be attending was enough to for me to say Yes, as to say No, would just be plain rude!!!

Although the room the indoor stalls would be in would have a stage with a DJ and live acts I was assured that the room would be big enough for me to still conduct business.

Remember at the heart of it I am Nigerian, and we are all about business.

I even made sure that there would be wi-fi, so that I could take card payments.

As I know that parking locally may be an issue, and that I would be packing up late at night, I wanted to be able to do as few trips as possible and decided to take a slimmed down stall of my best sellers.

The weekend before I even arranged for a little helper, in exchange for a entry pass, and I was feeling good.

However even with the best plans, universe always throws in a few curve balls I think just to test your dedication to the cause, which started on Wednesday, 2 days before the event was due to start.

I called up my little helper and it went to voicemail, thought I had the wrong number so checked and phoned again, but left a message.

Thursday I still hadn't got a response from my little helper, so tried again, but this time he answered the phone, but was a bit flaky, long story short he couldn't make it as he had his dates mixed up.

Personally I wasn't that bothered, as I have been all my markets single handed, and when it comes down to it, would i be able to get hold of him when I needed him?

That would just add more unnecessary stress, and I took this as a blessing in disguise!

Friday morning comes, I finished polishing and setting the last of my new handmade sterling silver bezel set rings and studs, packed the car before jumping in the bath, before putting on my favourite black cotton jumpsuit.

Added the last few munchies to my lunch box, opened the gates to my garage, jumped in the car, and put the key in the ignition.......Nothing

I tried it a couple of times, with same results, and realised my baby ain't going anywhere.

After not being able to attend the Summer Arkade market on Sunday 22nd August 2021, because I had lost the garage door key, there was no way I was going to cancel this opportunity!

I start running around my head my options, at one point considered paying a neighbour  washing his car £20 to drop me down to Camp & Furnace but thought the better of it.

Instead a called Ian, a photographer I had met at the Summer Pop Up in the Palm House, who I knew wanted to go to the Festival of Reggae, but hadn't got a ticket.

I took a chance that he hadn't got a ticket, that he was free and was willing to pick me up and drop me down.

As luck would have it, he didn't have a ticket, and he would be able to pick me up in 20 minutes!!!

So now that I had that immediate problem sorted next I need to sort the car, a quick call to the RAC, and they could get someone out in 5 hours time, which was of now use to me, so I rearranged it for first thing Saturday morning.

Now I just have to relax and wait for Ian, who turned up between jobs, we loaded up the car and off we set to the venue.

We chatted about my day so far, and he said potentially its the battery, and when he had to replace his, it was £200+ because he had a stop & start engine.

When we got to venue an hour later than planned, my stall wasn't even set up!  And this is what greeted me:
 
There  where other stalls, but as usual there was an over representation of jewellers, but I've paid my money and my creations were completely different to everyone else.

Although reggae is not my genre of music I can go with the flow with most things, and its not offensive, in actual fact I found it quite chilled and the flowers kept me distracted when the DJs were playing their sets!
 
Sales were slow on the Friday night, and to be honest I was thinking about the logistics of packing my stall up and getting everything home.

Now I thought I had all my bases covered, with the table position and wi-fi, but come 9pm, one thing that never occurred to me was the venue switching off the lights, which caused an obvious problem with people seeing the jewellery.

My little LED lights can only do so much, and with everything else I had to contend with I decided to call it quits!!!

I packed everything and loaded everything up on my little trolley, a very helpful steward help my get my stuff off the venue and move me to the street corner, where in theory I should be able to pick up a black hackney cab easily, but such is life, I was on that street corner for 15 minutes before a taxi stopped to pick me up!

I was up early on Saturday, washed and showered before the RAC called to say he was on his way, so everything was good in my world.

That was until I heard the dreaded words, its the battery and you have a stop start engine system!

The second part of the statement was news to me, as my car does not cut out at the light and never has done, and I was under the understanding that I was not driving a Stop Start engine car, to which he said that the battery had been doing all the heavy lifting!!!

Well at point you just hold your breathe waiting for them to tell you how much a new battery is going cost, in my case £210!!!

Which he said he carries in his van, but of course me being me, the one he has is too big for the battery holder in the car, so he has to go off and buy the correct one.

An hour later, the car is working I'm £210 lighter but I am ready for the second day of the festival.

Flowers were a different colour, but still had no clue what they had to do with the festival:
 
Some of the people who had stands the day before didn't return, and there were a couple of new stall holders.

Joolzery stand was looking fabulous as per usual, including my new collection of handmade sterling silver bezel set healing crystal studs:
 
Festival opened at 12 noon, which I thought was a little early for a Saturday, and it was a slow start.

Not that I cared that much, my car was working, I was full of a Mocha and chocolate brownie, the tunes was boss, and I was just enjoying the atmosphere:
  It was interesting seeing the different age groups and socio-economic backgrounds of people attending this festival, but I suppose music, and maybe especially reggae transcends all divisions?

The day was full of activities for children, DJ sets, live acts and a childrens' play/dance recital, and they time passed quickly, as I had a steady stream of sales.

9 pm came quicker than expected, as we were again plunged into darkness, but I had the car I just chilled, relaxed and re-positioned my LED light sticks, at 9:45pm I had a rush of sales on the stall which equated to 20% of my sales for the day!!!

One of these customers loved her ring so much she put it on instagram, and gave me a big shoutout, which has increased my followers as well as an enquiry, so all in all a good couple of days.

The Lesson: Sometimes you have to do things you've never done before, come out of your comfort zone, things don't always go to plan, and you have to overcome some unforeseen obstacles, but you've got to keep on turning up!

What do you think?

Please add your comments below.

Joolz xxx

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September 22, 2021

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