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  • From: Errol Castens <castens AT peoplepc.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] football games vs. farmers' market
  • Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:49:53 -0600 (GMT-06:00)

Our 5-year-old, Saturday-morning, producers-only market in Oxford,
Mississippi, gets hammered whenever the University of Mississippi holds a
home football game, unless it's a night game (which is rare). Especially
difficult is that games are subject to being moved to 11:30 a.m. to
accommodate TV schedules, and we rarely know until the Wednesday before
whether it's going to happen.

The good part: Games draw 50,000 or more to our town of 13,000, and lots of
these folks take great pride in putting out an impressive spread at their
tailgating parties.

The bad parts:
1. We're open from 7 to 11 a.m., and tailgating parties are literally an
all-day affair for many of these folks. Even if it's an afternoon game,
they've done their cooking already.
2. We're not on a main artery to campus or the major shopping areas.
3. Many of our regular customers are tailgating in The Grove when they'd
normally be shopping at the farmers' market.
4. If they aren't tailgating themselves, many other customers are hesitant to
brave the traffic that's between us and them.

This mix means growers aren't able to depend on a good turnout, so they tend
to taper off their production after football season starts, which makes the
market less attractive to those customers who do show up. This whole problem
has caused us to shut down at the end of September – just as the weather is
getting really nice, there's a good selection of both warm- and cool-weather
produce and it's still a month before typical first frost.

Mark Cain of Dripping Springs Garden, who has sold primarily flowers and some
vegetables at the Fayetteville, Ark., market for a long time, said their
market absolutely loves home games at the University of Arkansas, and I
suspect there are other markets with similar responses. Other than move to
another location, what can some of y'all in college towns suggest that we do
to make home games work for us instead of against us next year?

Thanks in advance.

Blessings,
errol castens

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