Chattanooga Oktoberfest® 2022 is in the books, and I must say that it exceeded my own expectations considerably. We made a few changes to the layout, tweaked the format, added a few new elements and for the most part things went smoothly.
- in 2019, we sold about $290k worth of goods during the festival
- in 2020, the world was without beer.
- in 2021 the festival returned strong, posting sales of $400k (a 38% increase over 2019)
This year, we posted sales of $590k - a 47% increase over last year, and 200% increase over 2019! What an incredible weekend. That works out to approximately $37k/hour, or over $10/second for 16 hours straight. [edit: 53% of sales were on Saturday, 47% on Sunday]
Beer sales were certainly good - we blew a keg every 5 minutes for the duration of the festival, with nearly 3,000 gallons consumed. As we remain the family-friendliest Oktoberfest around, I’m happy to share that there were no major issues, no arrests and no health crisis during the entirety of the event. (A few mobile residents panhandling, but nothing major.)
Changes Ahead
The festival will change some in 2023. I’m not going to spoil a happy moment with some of the relatively few negatives, but vendors who expressed discontent during Oktoberfest will not be made to suffer through the festival again – the festival will go on without them. There will be increased event emphasis and structure, with more space dedicated to the comfort of our patrons.
Oktoberfest will become an optional event, separate from the Season Pass, with optional/invited participation based on this year’s festival performance, past seasonal performance and next year’s participation levels. Farms are certainly still welcome - in fact, no product category will be excluded; it will boil down to individual vendor desire, performance, and compatibility.
Only active and competitive vendors will be accepted to attend, with Saturday leaning more towards the festival and Sunday more towards the market. It’s clearly a bit of both, which makes us unique – but as the saying goes, you can’t make everyone happy all of the time.
Back to Happy
Below is the two-day breakdown by vendor category, and the average booth (per day) sales within each group. The outcome is different than the typical market, but many categories did quite well with this unique format
| Vendor: Vendor Category ↑ | Sum of Gross Sales | Average Gross Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Artwork | $16,815.69 | $672.63 |
| Body Care Products | $10,876.58 | $906.38 |
| Candles | $16,443.69 | $1,027.73 |
| Clothing | $8,727.12 | $969.68 |
| Service | $2,210.00 | $1,105.00 |
| Farm - Fresh Produce | $5,887.00 | $841.00 |
| Farm - Garden & Nursery | $6,031.00 | $1,507.75 |
| Farm - Herbal Products | $1,199.00 | $599.50 |
| Farm - Protein | $2,416.65 | $1,208.33 |
| Fiber Arts | $11,019.75 | $734.65 |
| Floral | $8,680.00 | $1,736.00 |
| Food & Beverage | $127,717.91 | $2,409.77 |
| Food Products | $103,967.31 | $1,506.77 |
| Glass | $3,346.81 | $836.70 |
| Jewelry | $38,211.80 | $955.30 |
| Leather | $4,200.00 | $2,100.00 |
| Metal | $7,166.31 | $1,194.39 |
| Mixed Media | $3,012.00 | $502.00 |
| Paper Products | $1,628.00 | $814.00 |
| Pet Products | $4,380.00 | $1,095.00 |
| Photography | $4,935.00 | $705.00 |
| Pottery | $3,420.00 | $855.00 |
| Recycled Art | $1,444.00 | $722.00 |
| Wood | $14,111.00 | $1,282.82 |
| Total | $588,852.18 | $1,881.32 |
Moving Ahead
We have several busy items on the short-term horizon, including Head of the Hooch 2022 Enrollments and Holiday Market signups. We are going to release new vendor/waitlist vendors to the Holiday Market booths this week, so consider this your final warning – register or miss out.
Have a great week - will see you on Sunday!