Today was the 2024 Maker Faire at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Wooster, OH. I had my car packed the night before so I was able to roll out early and arrived at the start of the setup window. I parked right up front, grabbed a cart, and asked a volunteer where my booth was. He was friendly, but not very engaged, and had a little trouble looking up the list. He eventually found the booth and sent me on my way.
I was glad I got there early since it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to set up my booth to be bright, colorful, and inviting. Took me about an hour and when I was done I went back to the volunteer and asked where I should move my car to since I was right up front. He thought about it for a moment, then decided it was fine just where it was.
Which was not the case and I managed to mostly not hear the announcement as I headed into the bathroom about moving out cars. Whatever, my foot was kinda bothering me so I didn’t really want to walk that far.
I was ready an hour before the event started and had time for the obligatory social media post.
And then, I waited for the people and turned myself – for 6 hours – into an extrovert.
I said hello to everyone. Invited everyone to fold something with me or take a free item from the premade bin. I was polite, engaging – even (gasp) chatty.
The kids, as usual, were the best. I made sure to encourage them and cheer them on when they got a tricky step right. If things went completely sideways, I always made sure to give them the one that I made too.
And I got to share some fun surprises. If we made a box, I always added a small crane or frog before putting on the lid. The wings on the bird always got a test “flap” and each frog was given a test “hop”.
I had some good conversations with people and gave out my email address to a couple of people that either wanted an interview or for me to attend another Maker Faire.
To my delight, I had at least one person request everything on my board. Including one firefly that one little boy did perfectly. It was pretty great.
Here’s the final count of the projects I did with people. I was also folding things for the giveaway box the whole time so I don’t know how much I folded, but it was a lot.
- Bird 5
- Box 19
- Frog 8
- Butterfly 10
- Flower 3
- Firefly 1
- Duck 1
The day ended up being 2 hours for set up, 6 hours of folding, and an hour to pack back up. I got chided for not calling the coordinator over to sit at my table so I could walk around – but it seemed like I would be doing a disservice to those that came to the event. I did take a short break at the table to have most of a sandwich, but that was it.
So, it was a long day. But a productive one. I think people had fun and enjoyed learning something new.
Might get some “future folders” out of it.