Creatures of Kwento at the Grimoire Exhibition in Dayton, OH on November 9, 2024
Yesterday, we participated in the Grimoire Exhibition, which focuses on bringing together witchcraft, folklore, wizardry, etc. (The event expanded into a two-day event, but we chose to only participate in one day for a handful of reasons.)
As our first event, we were very nervous and worked on our setup for about two weeks! Shilyn, one of the co-owners, worked on making a giant banner for our shop, while Alex, the other co-owner, sourced or crafted the booth displays.
The event featured a variety of vendors ranging from crystal vendors to authors, tarot readers to spooky bag makers, and so on.
Our booth was at the end of a row, and we were allowed to put our banner out(!) Unsurprisingly, this helped bring people to our booth....and surprisingly, people took pictures with the banner.
A lot of people stuck around to ask about some of the folklore. So, of course, we shared as much as they'd listen. It seemed like the favorites were about the manananggal and the daligmata.
We met a small handful of people who actually knew about the manananggal! Apparently, there was a recent PBS program, Monstrum, that featured it. (Of course, we went straight home to look it up!)
One particular customer recognized all of them. She was Filipino and very superstitious, so she did not touch the plushies...but she did share stories about her barangay and some things she remembered hearing from her childhood.
We also made and tested some new products like little spirit houses, woven hearts, and salt to ward off manananggal. The spirit houses were a hit, so we may be releasing those online as we continue to make more.
Overall, we really liked the event and are definitely planning on doing more next year!