Malaysia Street Fest: feedback

This is a first for me, participating in an event situated at a shoplot. I had my doubts but thinking that if I didn't try, I wouldn't have known the outcome. Well, I didn't expect much when the day arrived since it's been raining but I did anticipate a good crowd since the organizer seemed to have quite a follower on Instagram. Also, Ruang SS18/6 Subang Jaya was quite a popular spot for events, functions and exhibitions.

Alas, my fear came true. After finished setting up at 11.30am, there was not even a speck of customers. We were practically 'phak wu ying' (hitting flies in Cantonese), vendors looking at each other, doing nothing else but chatting. It was such a disappointment.

My booth @ Ruang

The set up was spacious for me although kinda cramped between vendors along the side and food area. Nevertheless, many booths (I think there were 30 although some didn't turn up) should have attracted many customers but nope. Hubs was asking me how come there wasn't any banner or bunting running along the road. Also there wasn't much publicity in Facebook, only depending on Instagram which is totally not enough. This event was their 4th so I would have thought the organizer would have done enough to attract customers but I was wrong. There was totally not enough awareness around the neighbourhood.

Some of my thoughts:

• Banners, buntings, fliers to create the hype but I don't see any of these except for a small banner at Ruang. As it is, Ruang is at the outskirt of SS18 so no one would have purposely passed by there to squint at the small banner.
• I noticed the organizer kept publicising a boy on Instagram which was unknown to me. I later found out he happens to be a small local celebrity. Erm, he ain't Brad Pitt so definitely NOT a crowd puller. Come on! Who uses a small fly to promote their event? It's not even a meet & greet event ler! Unless you are telling me Ning Baizura is there to promote her clothes plus she has a booth is a different story and it is related to the event.
• Other marketing efforts are required especially Facebook, the mogul of publicity. Even Ruang didn't help publicized the event in Facebook.
• Malaysia Street Fest, to me, is a festival with attractions etc. Unfortunately, there was nothing. I didn't even see the organizer except for Ruang staff in the evening, waiting to close the shop. I thought there would be balloons for kids, giveaways, etc but there was none to attract customers, only flies. Honestly they should pick up a trick or two from other successful organizers like Markets, Supplies Surprise and Amazing Bazaars.

The root cause = no publicity nor marketing efforts. The whole event was so low key. Subang Jaya is a vast township. IF they had done enough, there would have been many customers instead of just a handful. I do not believe the excuses the other vendors had told me i.e. there were another 2 big bazaars elsewhere hence the crowd must have gone there. Come on! Subang Jaya has a huge population! There would have been at least 1/5 of SJrians willing to drop by if they had known and staying nearby especially SS18 and SS14. It did rain but only for about an hour so the weather shouldn't hamper it.

Whatever it was, no more shoplots for me, unless it's my own shop *wishful thinking*. I noticed the organizer kept Instagramming for vendors for the next event on 31st Jan. Many like me who had suffered a big loss would have ignored it. Well, once bitten twice shy they say... perhaps it's time for me to spring-clean my Instagram following list.