New York Maple Weekend

[gator330]

So how was Maple weekend at your Sugar House?? We are to small to be open for the public to come and see the operation. I did however have a visitor to our Sugar shack. A man and wife who have 500 taps and sell there sap to another producer to boil. They noticed the the steam and tank and put two and two together and stopped by. It was nice to get there take on things. An yway need to get back to the extra dark cooking syrup that we are making today.

[backyardsugarer]

Great turn out. A thousand people or better showed up today. Most bought something but not big items. $ down from last year but attendance up. The news was here so I hope for a big Sunday. Only about 500 gallons of sap from the woods and it was not great looking. May be the end is near. Good luck to all others that are participating.

Chris

[arcticcatmatt]

I took my girlfriend and two friends to sweetrees in Berkshire and Sugarbush Run in Newark Valley today.

We had a bunch of fun and purchased a few small items.

Our favorite was Sweetrees as the owners Dan and Ruth are very friendly and VERY informative! Thank you for the experience! Much appreciated!

If anyone is out and about I recommend you get out there and visit some sugar shacks and have some fun!

http://www.mapleweekend.com/locations.htm#Tioga

[arcticcatmatt]

"maple weekend" is now over in NY and there are no posts?

:( :cry:

[Bucket Head]

We do not participate in Maple Weekend because were small and not really set up for public viewing. However, we did help out some friends at their sugarhouse.

The lack of advertising this year was very apparent. There were people there both days, but not anything like last year. Maple Weekend was advertised almost everwhere last year. But this year I only heard a few radio comercials for it, was told it was listed in the local Pennysaver classified paper, and I did not see anything on the TV about it.

The politicians in this state are hooting and hollering about getting syrup prduction up so were number one in the nation. But when it comes to actually promoting it, they pull the plug on funding for the promotions.

Hopefully next year they will get the advertising out like they used to.

Steve

[sapman]

This was my first year paying the money to participate, and I can't say it was much better than other years when I just did my own promotion. There were some that came because of the website. Our local paper did a full page on us with a couple pictures, but still there wasn't what I had hoped for.

Oh well, if I can just make a bunch more bulk I'll be happy!

Tim

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

I participated in Maple Weekend for the first time this year. Frankly, I am dissappointed. I met some nice people and renewed some old aquaintences but the time, extra effort and the $'s spent in the middle of a very busy production time showed little return. I spent more on one extra hired person than I had in syrup sales. Had about 200 guests over the 4 days and spent a great deal of time explaining our operation and history. People were polite and friendly and the interactions were enjoyable. Many visitors were visiting lots of sugarhouses so the weekends made nice family outings but ultimately, from my end, it was a financial fiasco!
Doug

[Bucket Head]

Hopefully the event, and the visitors, will bring sales in the future. Return visits, repeat customers and sales.

I agree with everyone on the amount of work and money spent for the return on those two days.

Where does the money everyone pays and our Assoc. dues go? This does'nt pay for better promotion?

It seems like promotions for wine and apples/cider are non stop during their season.

Where is the money for their promotions coming from?

Like Sapman does, everyone do their own thing and it will pay off. You keep up the good "public relations" and business will follow.

Like the saying goes, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.

Good luck on next years Weekend!

Steve

[arcticcatmatt]

What did it cost for you guys to be included in "maple weekend"?

I did not know there was a cost. I saw it in the newspaper and I also was on NYS maple site and found my local places that were participating.

[maple flats]

It cost $85 for 1 or both weekends. We had a good turnout both weekends but I'm thinking I may do just the second weekend next year if any. I get lots of visitors without the extra advertising. Last year I had way too many visitors and sold out my season's entire crop in a record production year because of 3 newspaper articles in addition to the maple weekend cost. I had nothing to sell later in the year. This year I had one newspaper article, plus the maple weekend advertising (which was way down this year) and the crowd was about the biggest I like. However i do get a good repeat sales demand from previous years. I don't particularly like having to slow down but must when visitors are present or something goes wrong (like my burnt syrup pan this past saturday). As of now my thought are to go no advertising and just make real good syrup. Getting product sold has never been a problem yet.

[danno]

Dave - I agree with you. You really need to have a couple of people in the sugarhouse who know how to fire an evaporator if you are going to host a maple weekend. Things can go wrong just too quick if you are trying to boil and host.

I was trying to entertain the other day while boiling when one of my visitors said - "is that syrup from your filter supposed to be over filling that 5 gallon jug onto the ground?"

Also, where I'm located, I really don't want any customers in my sugarhouse the last weekend of March when I am producing commercial. The sap does not look good in the holding tanks, the smell in the sugarhouse is not great, the syrup in the syrup pan ain't so pretty, it's 85 degrees in the sugarhouse and I've got mosquitoes. Where I am in the Thruway corridor - I'd prefer people coming over earlier in the season when I'm making good syrup.

[TroutBrookSH]

Have not officially participated but we advertise locally and still do well. My wife is afraid we'll be overrun if we list on mapleweekend.com too!

This year we did a pancake breakfast in conjunction with my son's church youth group. The response was huge for them, and we had a lot of extra traffic as a result.

Greg

[backyardsugarer]

Steady groups of people both weekends. First weekend was a little better than the second. Without the advertising I am afraid we are going to lose a lot of producers that don't get on the news or in the paper. Sold about 150 gallons of syrup (mostly pints) which is great for profit but also had a lot of people just out for something to do and taking the free tour. My season is now over and on to clean up.

Chris

[dnap63]

We had over 1000 people during the 4 days with the 2 Saturdays being the busiest. I feel we had a fun event for the people who attended but we had a lot of extra help, about 10 people. We had at least 2 people sometimes 3 in the sugar house and 2 people selling food all day. Some of the things we did included a petting zoo and tours of the sugar bush where we did tree tapping demos and answered questions. overall it was a sucess but took a lot of preplanning. Sales were good.

[arcticcatmatt]

I see some people say sales were good and some say they were not good.

I must say that the people in our group only spent maybe 10 bucks each BUT they all said they are coming back to buy and they are telling all their friends. Heck my girlfriend went to work and told her boss the fun we had. Her boss is giving her 50 bucks to go buy her a gallon.

Sometimes word of mouth is the best advertisement.

Dnap63 - You are in Maine!? I should have come down! Closest I got to you was the sugarbush run in newark valley.

[dnap63]

Matt, you just needed to go over one more hill to get here. Feel free to stop in anytime,
Dan