What should have it been called?

So, How do you write an article about your weekend event without hurting the Owner of an Awesome Venue? Just because he put his trust into the Wrong Event Planner? (Send me a PM and I will tell you the name!)

Well, I am going to do my best!

My weekend started out Great!

I loaded up the truck and headed out to Colcord, Oklahoma.

I stopped at Best Western just off Hwy 412 and Checked in.

Next, I plugged in the Latitude and Longitude into my Garmin. (Yep, you read write.. that is what she gave me for the location to get there for the event .. not an address but lat & long.) Anyways things went fine until the Garmin had me drive down a cattle trail and I felt like I was in the movie Deliverance! Yep I even heard the Music going in My head!!

I was literally looking for a place to turn around when I seen the sign for the Event!

I pull up and I am the Only Craft Vendor there! (But its Only 10am)

Our Application says Today (Sept. 25, 2019) is set up is 10am and everything must be set up before 3pm!  So, I go in search of the Event Planner and this is when I meet up with an old rough looking biker. He takes me to her and I get checked in.

The Check in process was not right: There was NO Welcome Package (no tax form, no event page, no parking pass, etc.) she seemed scattered brained. Anyways, she told me that there was” 30+ vendors” for the week and showed this to me on “the board”. (But later on I found out this was a lie!)

We then walked to where she wanted me to set up my booth. This is where she explained that the tents would all be close together and that the customers would be walking where she painted arrows on the ground! At this point I explained that my set up would be all-inside my booth where the customers would walk in and thru the booth. She then made an excuse and left and I began to set up my booth.

By three pm Only five more craft vendor and four food vendors showed up!

I really didn’t think much of this because it was only Wednesday and the Beginning of the Event!

Now, as I got to know my neighbors during the event I found out a few things!

1. The Easy way to get To and From the Event from my hotel, a Big Thank You to my neighbor Lisa and her sister Diana!

2. The Original Event Name: Bikes, Blues & BBQ at Flint Creek ……had to be changed because the Event Manager infringed on the BBB and they told her it had to be changed! So, she changed it to Blues, Bikes & BBQ… Again this was infringing on the BBB and she was forced to changed it again.  So the 3rd Time it was changed to Old School House Jam.   (Now mind you I was never informed about this and I was placing posts on Facebook promoting the Bikes Blues & BBQ at Flint Creek during the event!)…………What was the ACTUALLY NAME of the Event?? I still Do Not Know!

3. Bikes Blues and BBQ is a Free Event and I Found out that people & children were being charged $10.00 to get into the event! We thought the Wristbands on the Adults were for incase you were buying Beer!

4. The Event  Manager didn’t tell the staff all the job duties and when they found out certain ones, the staff kept apologizing to me when things were not done. ( ex: trash not picked up, lighting not done, etc)

5. She told us that there was going to be a radio station there doing a promotion. None showed up and there was nothing on the website stating anything about one coming!

6. She told us there was going to be 30+ vendors But only 7 showed up for the event and she literally ran 3 off! (How? By not communicating with them truthfully about how the event was going and then not even showing up.

7.  She also charged us all different prices too? …. I had a 10×10 booth and had to pay $150.00… now the others that had the same or larger booths paid between $60.00 – $120.00 for the whole event and yes that included the food trucks! (All us Vendors had a Running Joke that we had to pay to get friends for the week and we are Very Expensive Friends…LOL)

8.  Now to me if you are having a Biker/Blues Rally Event you Don’t hiring Country Band to play at the Event and this is what she did! So again before I left the event I had a talk with the owner about my friend Scott and his band! The Owner was really excited and stated that he would Love to have him play out there at one of his events!

9.  If you want to know the other issues — feel free to email me!

There were a lot of other issues as well and we discussed these with the owner! Because it came to a point that no matter what the Event Manager said, we knew not to believe anything that came out of her mouth!

 

Now, That I have told you about my terrible experience!

Let me tell you the positive of my experience of the Event!

I made back my Booth Space money plus the money to buy a tent!

(My tent was damaged the first day in a storm so I had to replace it)

And

Are you a History Buff? ………Yes?      No?

Do you Like Watching Westerns?

Do you Like hearing about and then going and checking out really cool places?!

Then this place is for you!

I found out the event was the actual place of the Goingsnake Massacre! How Cool is that!!It was a shootout that happened during the civil war, Zeke Proctor, a Cherokee was being tried here in the old school house for killing Polly Beck. A shootout broke out in school house killing 8 of the Marshals & 3 Cherokees.

The new owner of this property has recently fixed up the old school house. He has layed down a new floor because the old one had to much blood ingrained in the wood that he felt it was not salvable but did not want to get rid of the history of the floor and there are also bullet holes still visible in the walls!

The cemetery is even close by so you can check out where Polly Beck and others was laid to rest! The owner can tell you where Zeke Proctor has been laid to rest since I was not told that part of the history.

While  I was at the event I even got to met a few of Zeke Proctors family!

This is a neat place to check out!

Now Remember I didn’t have the greatest time but I love the History and the Beauty of the Place, I was even told several times by the event manager that the Old School House was to be added to the BBB, But on looking up the routes and finding out that this was also not true I personally called Bikes, Blues and BBQ and Nominated for this place to be added to the route due to the easy location and the awesome history!

 

I also had another idea: I think it would be an Awesome if Troy did an Annual Event on April 15 because that was the day of the massacre!

Click here to read more about the Goingsnake Massacre!

This is an image of Zeke Proctor! (Verified by one of his family members that I meet at the event!)

I wish Troy all the Best with the Old School House and it Success!