Holiday Gift & Craft Show and Dark Holiday Bazaar
Hello, readers of BleakBlog!
We here at Bleak HQ are recovering from another wonderfully busy weekend spent vending around Wisconsin.
Saturday found us in Green bay at the massive Resch Center (right across the street from Lambeau Field) for the 500+ vendor Holiday Gift and Craft Show, giving folks Krampus-themed options for their holiday decor. For an event of this sheer size, it was run like clockwork by the organizers, and it was a cinch to load in and find our booth space. Adjoining this holiday craft show was Collectorabilia -- a pop culture expo run by the same organizers, but with a decidedly different crowd. For us, this meant that interspersed throughout our day we would have cosplayers and other delightfully nerdy folks passing through our selection of dark home goods.
My favorite interaction from all of Saturday came when a group of Among Us cosplayers wanted to check out our handmade soaps. However, they were essentially in a sealed, inflatable bubble. How did we make that work? The bubble had one tiny pass-through slot, so they would call out which soaps they thought sounded interested, and we would pop them through the slot. Once they had enough soaps collected, they passed their money out to us, and we passed them a carefully folded bag. We here at Bleak Boutique love costumes and nerd culture, but even we must admit that was a first for us. Among Us dudes: we hope you like the soap! You're rad, and welcome to shop with us again anytime.
As with any busy market day, Saturday seemed to vanish in an instant, and from there it was off to Madison for The Dark Holiday Bazaar hosted by Crucible. As we've mentioned in our past blog about the Madison Odd Market, Crucible is one of the premier goth/metal bars and music venues in the Madison area. We have always felt incredibly welcome at every vendor event they host, and The Dark Holiday Bazaar would prove to be no different. With a killer playlist of goth classics and other head-bobbing tunes, assorted Krampuses (Krampii?) wandering around to put everyone in their holiday spirits, a light dusting of snow on the ground outside, and a curated selection of grim and morbid craft vendors (many of whom are good friends to us here at Bleak Boutique), The Dark Holiday Bazaar was a blast.
Our Krampus Tealight Terrors were even approved by Krampus. Several of them!
To the hard-working staff and performers at Crucible and The Dark Holiday Bazaar and Zurko Promotions for the Holiday Gift and Craft Show, thank you for the incredible weekend!
Until next time!
- Sean