Many vendors at Potato Festival repeat participants

Many of the food and product vendors at this past weekend’s North Carolina Potato Festival were repeat attendees.

Brian Condon, who was vending knives and other cutlery for Cutco, said the company founded in New York in 1949 tries to set up a vendor tent at “pretty much any festival we’re able to attend.”

That includes the Potato Festival in Elizabeth City, where the company’s had a vendor tent the past several years, he said.

Also returning to the Potato Festival this year was Isabella Graces, a company that sells clothing, colorful bows, bibs, burp cloths, and onesies for babies 12 months and younger. The clothes come in various prints, such as sunflowers, cow spots, stripes, dinosaurs, butterflies and cats.

“We’ve been selling our products at the Potato Festival for three years, ever since my granddaughter was born,” said Karen Hedrick, a Suffolk, Virginia-based vendor for the company. “We sell our products at about 20 festivals per year.”

While a number of vendors were either local or near-local to the Elizabeth City area, others hail from different parts of the country.

Grandma Irma Sauces hails from Northwest Indiana and sells gourmet sauces like jerk and barbecue sauces and habanero mango hot sauce. All of the products are gluten-free and free of genetically modified organisms.

“We sell our products at about 130 festivals per year, and this happens to be our company’s second year at the Potato Festival,” Grandma Irma Sauces co-owner Nicole Fleming said.

Bill McMullen, who owns The Vinyl Image with wife Amy, said they were attending their second Potato Festival.

“We love the area, and they probably the best promoter we’ve ever worked with,” he said. “We do large fairs, state fairs, county fairs, music festivals. We live in Florida and we travel to New York. We are originally from Buffalo.”

As rain rain drizzled early Saturday morning on the second day of the festival, Fleming said she didn’t think the weather would affect her sauce sales.

“Luckily, the rain isn’t affecting our sales,” she said. “The sauces are dips and marinades, so normally people come out rain, sleet, or snow to get it.”

Condon, the Cutco representative, said the rain, if it got heavier, likely would affect sales.

“The rain is pretty light, but if it starts to pick up, I’m sure it will affect our product sales,” he said.

McMullen, who was speaking on Sunday, said the weather likely had affected his sales. The Vinyl Image sells custom images cut into actual vinyl records that can be used for decorative purposes.

“We did half of what we did last year — maybe it was the weather. But today was a decent day,” he said.

Because of the nature of their business, McMullen said he and his wife are on the road a lot. They have to pick and choose which festivals to attend.

“We look up the shows (online), check out their attendance numbers. We don’t go to none that are under 10,000 (attendees),” he said.

McMullen said participating in multiple festivals and fairs a year requires advance planning and knowledge of travel expenses, especially vendor fees. He said those fees can range from $375 to $2,000 for county fairs and $4,200 for New York State fairs.

“There’s a lot to consider,” he said. “The cost of the show. (Whether festival attendees) are coming for the food and rides. You have to find your own good shows to do, and you have to book them months in advance.”

Staff Writer Kesha Williams contributed to this report.