Daybreak at New England Motel Brimfield

We open at 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It's not even light out yet! Here is a pic of John Melby's booth with his candles burning. What ambiance, no?

Here is my booth in the early morning.
New England motel is the field we set up in at the fabled Brimfield antiques market, think thousands of dealers spread out over several miles on each side of the highway. I think there are about 16 different shows, some open continuously, some open on different days and close that day. Some dealers set up at several of the shows, setting up and tearing down and moving up the road and setting up again. Why do they do this? Well, its an outdoor show, and this gives you a better chance to hit a good weather day. And not all of the customers come every day. So they work a little harder, and hopefully make a bit more money. At least that's the theory.

Here is my friend Edd Oberg from Richmond House Antiques in his booth on our field a bit later. It sure helps to have some daylight!

The reason for this post is to talk about what some of us dealers are doing at the New England Motel. A group of us decided it would be fun to set up together at a field. We all have somewhat similar antiques to sell, and we can watch each others booths, and probably my customer would like Edd's antiques, and John's customer would like mine, so its good for the customers too, they can see a lot of nice early stuff all in one place. So far it seems to be working. Many customers commented favorably this September. We are adding another dealer in the spring, Cathy Constantino from Nova Scotia.

Here is my friend Rick Fuller from Vermont's booth. Does this man look awake to you? That is the only down side of all this fun, that early opening time makes for a sleepy dealer later in the day.








Here is my friend Stephanie Chiappa, from New York's booth, also in our little group. Lots of great smalls.