By Marcie Wilde, General Manager
Back in June 2013, during my first year working with the co-op, I distinctly remember our then GM, Lucinda, warning me to “stay hydrated and watch peoples’ feet”. I thought to myself, “that is the weirdest thing to warn me about, but ok”.
High Sierra Music Festival was coming to town, and the staff was preparing for something I hadn’t been a part of yet; the “incoming”. It sounded so ominous, like we were about to be abducted or something.
Then, on a bright and warm Thursday morning in July 2013, the floodgates opened. In came shoppers of all varieties. Colorful, energetic, and full of joy, these shoppers descended upon the co-op looking for the best coconut water and snacks they could find before heading to the fairgrounds.
I began to realize that Lucinda was onto something; I was looking at their feet! I became the shoe police, standing by the door and asking probably over 100 shoppers to get proper footwear before entering the store. Luckily, everyone was so full of joy that there wasn’t a fight or negative comment made. I think they were just so excited to get to their “home” for the weekend, they must have forgotten to put on shoes! This experience still sits with me to this day, and now when I coach my staff prior to the influx of people, I still say “watch their feet”!
I wasn’t at all prepared for the busiest day of the year for the co-op. I was still new-ish and was overwhelmed by the constant line of people waiting to check out. What impressed me the most – no one was in a hurry! No one was angry! Everyone was dancing, singing, and genuinely enjoying each others’ company. By the end of the day, I collapsed at home and realized – I hadn’t had one sip of water all day. Dang it, Lucinda was right, again!
High Sierra Music Festival has been an important week for the co-op for over 25 years. It is the busiest week of the year for much of our community. We even hosted a co-op general store inside the festival for a few seasons, selling snacks and supplies. We frequently ordered produce for them and delivered it backstage while we were still operating out of our Harbison Street location.
More recently, we have continued to work with High Sierra to help facilitate the distribution of supplies needed to host the festival. We frequently deliver breakfast and lunch on request from our deli to the set-up and clean-up crews. We currently sponsor the festival and are spotlighted in their resource booklet, given to attendees upon arrival.
The festival has a huge positive impact on our business. Not only does the influx of tourism create more business, but overall, the VIBE of High Sierra brings joy and excitement to our stores. Our staff frequently use this time to dress-up in their favorite festival gear, bringing an infectious sense of spirit to our co-op; they also get an opportunity to attend the festival and enjoy some time-off.
Average weekly sales for our Quincy location are around $57K. During the festival week, our average weekly sales increase by over 40% – to around $82K. This is around $23k in additional revenue for our small business.
Our customer counts during the week of the festival also show a dramatic increase. We average around 2,300 customers in a week, but during the festival, that number jumps to over 4,400. This one week of sales helps us weather the long winters.
We know that in recent years the festival has had difficulty maintaining its longstanding traditions. They had to make the very difficult decision during the pandemic to cancel the festival two years in a row. Losing Roy Carter, one of the producers of the festival, was also a devastating loss to the High Sierra community. We can see that the festival is not bringing the crowds it used to. The cost of producing the festival has increased drastically over the last five years.
The festival is making some exciting changes this year. For example, not having a single headliner opens up the doors for new artists to get a chance to share their talents. While the good vibes will remain the same, the festival is in a period of transition. We will continue to support the festival in any capacity we can, including enjoying it as much as possible on our time off!
We hope that the community will come out to support the festival this year, so that it can continue to return to Plumas County in the future. Without High Sierra, our community would not only lose important revenue, but will also lose the joy and color it brings to our mountain community.