Done Craft Hopping (pics)

Hi all,
Well I'm done with my craft show hopping and I had a ball! Of course I wasn't able to sneak any pictures from inside the shows but I did alot of investigating. My main reason for traveling nearly two hours was to see if the shows were worth doing next year. Between the two of them, there was only one I felt was the better choice.
Let's start from the beginning...We have two shows~~
The Craftsmen's Christmas Classic Show which runs 3 days for $480.
The Virginia Christmas Show at The Showplace~~4 days $435.

Now between the two of them you would automatically pick the cheaper one since it has 4 days...right?!
Well...Here are the pictures of The Showplace Show

It had a good crowd of cars but the outside of the building sort of resembles a big flea market. This surprised me but I strolled inside and it was really nice. Santa was sitting in the chair near the entrance for the kids which is a great touch. The crafts were a bit mixed with buy/sell and handmade crafts. I saw a man selling socks on the far end near the food area which threw me off. But then I strolled along the rest of the place and there were a mixture of food and also a guy selling wine. The crowd was ok with plenty of elbow room. My only issue was that they had one bathroom/one stall on the left of the building. And another bathroom with only 3 stalls on the right. Now with the number of people in the place...they should have had more.
I did buy some pumpkin coffee but nothing else caught my eye.

Now let's get to the Craftsman Classic....this show was HUGEEEEE!!
It's at the Richmond Raceway Complex and they were loaded with cars.

At 10am the place was filled with customers and it was elbow to elbow. I kept bumping into people and saying excuse me. It was so big that I got lost trying to find the doorway from where I started and had to stop a few times to rest. They had jewelry makers, hats & scrafts, fine art, blown glass, wood furntiure and so much more. It was like shopping in a mall!
I found one lady who has a business called Kan do Crafts. She sold Door hangers which were 18" high and flat bodies of snowmen, santas, bunnies, frankinstein and witches. They were adorable and sold for $21.95 a piece and people were buying like hotcakes! Wish I could show you a picture of it.
Anyway, moving on to another booth that I thought was amazing..it was called Lamps of Notes. The booth had lamps made from musical instruments. I visit their web-site and here is a look at their wonderful work.

Both shows were withing 10 minutes of each other and I loved seeing all the wonderful booth displays. Yet if I had to choose the show, I would pick the Craftsman Christmas Show. I figured if at 10am on a Friday the place is packed and people driving in by the car loads then image what saturday would be like.
Well I'm off to get my day started and work on some spring crafts. They have a spring show at the raceway in March and I want in!! :-)