
Plant Swap/Sale Event in Billings, Montana!
Zachary Drew*Mind the AI image, it is a placeholder until I get proper art done for the event.
**Event Details at the end.
I am hosting a HUGE plant swap/sale event up in Billings, Montana soon! I am so excited to go back to the town where my desire to start my business finally ignited!
I will link all the details below in case you're interested in attending, but I just gotta get my excitement out about how well it has already gone!
First, some context. Why Billings, Montana? Well, my fiancé, Shani, and I had discussed the possibility of moving there quite a bit at the beginning of this year. We had planned a trip out pretty early on to visit an online friend and attend the Montana Renaissance Faire! Shani has also been looking at attending a school in Montana to get a degree working with animals, which has been a life long dream for them. Having a friend out there (now friends plural!) was a big bonus too. After visiting Billings, we just absolutely fell in love with the kindness of everyone there, the close connection with nature, and how quiet it was compared to a big bustling city. By the end of our trip, we essentially set in stone the decision to move there soon in the coming years.
Now, for the event. After we came back and I registered my business, got some interested customers, purchased inventory, and found a footing on what I could handle, I decided I wanted to start setting roots for my business (and future family) in Billings as soon as I could. I reached out on Facebook to a houseplant enthusiast group for Billings, asking if anyone would be interested in having me visit to run a pop-up houseplant shop or host a small plant swap/sale event over a long weekend. I actually had a few people comment and mention existing events in the past that were primarily ran on weekdays and having a weekend one would be nice for those that work during the week. I had a few businesses reach out as well showing they would be interested in participating as well and a few more beyond that who offered to host.
At this point I reached out Jodi Fischer, who runs and owns Brass Velvet Trading Co., a lifestyle boutique, who had offered to host me for the event. We began to talk and discuss the logistics of the event and the available space. We decided we'd open up the event to anyone else who wanted to come setup a table as well and sell their excess houseplants as well as support local small businesses if they were interested. Once we had what we wanted to do down, we officially made a Facebook event for it and shared it to the local enthusiast groups.
I can say with certainty the reaction we got I did not expect. It wasn't a bad reaction to save your worry, but the sheer amount of people who showed interest in the event kept climbing and climbing. I remember it not even being 2-3 days into the event being live and sending constant update screenshots to Jodi about a new milestone of how many people put they were interested. Before the end of the week, we probably had 200-300 people how already wanted to attend. To me this was fascinating, as I had just attended a small plant swap event prior to planning this that was barely 10-15 people in attendance outside the vendors at any given time, and while the event page was live I also attended the first ever Rocky Mountain Plant Show in Denver, Colorado which had a much larger attendance and variety in plants, especially rare plants.
Now I am sitting here writing this and our event has been live for only a little under a month, and we have almost 3,000 people interested in attending, about 150 people who are set on attending, and over 20 vendors between home-sellers and small businesses who plant to setup at the event to sell! At this point we even have food trucks, refreshment stations, a tattoo artist, a permanent jewelry artist, and more lined up to attend as well! The attention this event has gotten has just lit up my heart so much and it's set me on moving to Billings, Montana even more with all the wonderful interactions I have had with people who have made posts and left comments about the event. I am so excited to host and be apart of this wonderful town and I can't wait to see how everything turns out.
Thank you all to bother to read to the end of this, and if you are attending the event either as just a guest or as one of our vendors, I cannot begin to show my appreciation and how much this means to me! All my love to the plant community of Billings, Montana and the surrounding area.
Event Details:
Magic City Plant-A-Palooza
Dates & Times:
- Saturday, September 7 - 12-6pm MT
- Sunday, September 8 - 12-4pm MT
Links:
Facebook Event Page
Pixel Plant Co. Facebook Page
Brass Velvet Trading Co. Facebook Page