This video was left over from last October. Kettle corn season starts in a few weeks! We’ve got a new spot we’ll be popping in Springfield every Tuesday starting in May. We’ll be popping in Forest Park, which is just a hundred yards from the original location. Anyone mentioning the farmers market will get in for free.

Popping again at the Framingham Humane Society craft fair. This video is an excerpt from the video that is part of my How To Start A Kettle Corn Business guide. The event basically got rained out, so there wasn’t a lot happening.

We decided to try another spot and see what happens. This gig came about from our Springfield farmers market location. A person who had bought our kettle corn wanted us to pop at their hospital employee event. We were kind of skeptical because we’ve done events like this and you don’t get the kind of traffic you need to make it a worthwhile day. I guess we weren’t skeptical enough.

The people running it were certainly nice, but this was their first time doing it. When I first arrived, the woman in the video just pointed me to the far end of the parking lot. I’m standing there in the middle of all this asphalt, wondering exactly where I’m supposed to pitch my tent. I’m looking at this large group of tents all bunched together, figuring I’ll be on the end of them, but she then PLACES me on the outer edge of everything. I’m thinking, “wow, this event must be huge, since I need to leave all this room in front of me.” I then get crap from a bikey guy who thought I was cutting into the motorcycle parking. He was trying to get me to move into the dirt. Cripes.

Our big gig this week was The Fall Festival at the Old Manse in Concord, MA. It was a Saturday gig, first time they’ve held it, so who knew what was going to happen. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I thought Joni was a health department official looking to shake us down out at our Framingham location when she courted us to make an appearance.

The significance of The Old Manse is that it’s located next to the Old North Bridge which was the location of the start of the Revolutionary War. Velma has more details in the video. Wadda ya know, another New England event with people dressed up in period costumes! It’s almost like us Yankees normally dress like this.

I didn’t realize that buses of tourists would be pulling up and dumping loads of foreigners amongst our midst. (Many were disappointed that we weren’t selling corn on the cob, boiled right in a kettle. Jeez.) Who knew there were that many people interested in a look-a-like bridge with only rock walls and trees to see. There seemed to be many British tourists coming through. I wonder if they were thinking, “Damn, if only our soldiers kicked their asses back then, this could’ve still been OURS.”

Back at the Framingham Farmers Market this week, we crossed paths with Robert McCarthy and Heather Kent of Castle Kettle Corn in Oregon. They had sent me an email a couple of months ago saying they loved this site and had all sort of stories to tell, then never really told them – until now. They had some fascinating things to say about popping in Mexico and how they managed to pull it off. They were doing something like our Florida trip, pop some of the time and enjoy the rest of the time. I guess they’ll be giving me updates as they go along and hopefully I’ll be posting them here. Here’s a video of them popping at the Olympic Trials and at the San Francisco Summer of Love 40th Anniversary.

 We haven’t had a chance to do an event like this, so this was interesting. Jim Doherty had contacted us via email a while ago about popping at the Sudbury Colonial Faire in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Everyone gets dressed up in period costumes from the revolutionary war and reenacts chasing the British out Sudbury…or Massachusetts..or whatever. Their normal kettle corn vendor couldn’t make it this year, so they had contacted us.

I KNEW our bright yellow tent would be an issue with somebody someday. They try to get everything to blend in with the ambiance of the event so you can delude yourself into thinking you had lived in that era, for a short while anyway. I’m not too sure if they used yellow dye #9 back in the 1700′s. I had sent him photos of our setup and after some head scratching, they decided to go with us. I kind of promised that if this event were lucrative, we could scrap together the 200 bucks to get a plain white tent and fit in better next time.

Of course it rained like [insert funny analogy here]. Normally on a weekday farmers market, if it rains we don’t make the trip because it’s VERY tricky to make kettle corn in a downpour. If you don’t bag everything within a few minutes you end up with a bin of mush. Jim had mentioned that MANY people come JUST FOR THE KETTLE CORN, so we were concerned about not disappointing the crowd that will “soldier through” this event, come rain or shine. We couldn’t just blow them off even when the forecast predicted “suck”.

The event went off as planned, we went through 5 oils which isn’t too bad of a day. We normally do that on a regular day at the Framingham Farmers market. The rain held off pretty much during the day, but waited for us to start loading the trailer before it really turned on the faucet. Of course an hour later, when we’re sitting in our cars, ready to pull out of there is when it stopped completely. I think the kettle corn Gods were giving us the finger for our incongruous tent color.

What is also notable (to us anyways) is that THIS field, which is located next to the Wayside Inn, was the location of another kettle corn vendor which inspired us to get into this business. For years, “Grand Pa’s Kettle Corn” has popped here at their yearly craft festival which Velma and I would always visit, just to get their kettle corn. Many people were wondering if we were the same people who pop there every year. I took that as a compliment since I’ve always loved “Grand Pa’s Kettle Corn”.