Attended my first ever Spruce Bog this weekend up in Whitehorse. I did alright, but not what I was hoping. It was held in the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre. The building itself is very beautiful, but I don’t feel it was the best setup for a fair as large as Spruce Bog. The fair was split up into multiple rooms, two large halls, and six smaller classrooms. I was placed in one of the classrooms, and it was small. The tables were setup in a U shape around the room, leaving very little space in the middle for customers to move.  It was like sardines in a can for much of the day, customers were extremely crammed, hard to move about or even see tables, which caused a lot of customers to just pass by the classrooms entirely in favor of the larger halls that had more walking area. The building felt over capacity for the entire day, no matter where you went. I heard the year before they held it at the Canada Games Centre, so I’m not sure why they changed it this year. I hope next year they choose a different venue. I felt like the vendors in the two large halls were more of the larger attractions than us smaller tables in the classrooms. They did try to entice people to enter every room with a punch card for a draw, but because of the cramped conditions, people tended to only enter long enough to get their card stamped, then bail out.

That’s not to say the experience was bad, it really wasn’t. The organizers were on the ball, and the Cadets they had working to assist were wonderfully helpful. Customers, stuff, volunteers were all very friendly, and it was a very welcoming environment. It was busy all day, with barely much time to sit down, got to talk to soooo many people! The new capsule machine was a huge hit, kids and adults loved playing it.  I put a bunch of “winning tickets” into it, and it was awesome when little kids won a prize and seeing them get really excited about it. I really want to do Spruce Bog again next year, I just would want a bigger space, but that was on me, I applied pretty late. I liked my setup, but if I can help it I am never doing a 5′ space ever again. It’s just too small! I made it work, but because I had to go UP with my space, I couldn’t sit down, at all. I would just disappear behind the display.  Overall, it was a decent fair, one I plan to return to next year.

UP NEXT: Watson Lake Christmas Fair on Saturday November 24th, then Geek the Halls in Whitehorse on Sunday, November 25th!