I know it's been a bit point of contention in the last year at the one festival we attend regularly - last year, they cut the merchant room in half *after* the deadline for applying to be a merchant - leaving some merchants in the room, and some out in the hallway, which resulted in a rather unfair situation, since the merchant room had set hours and the hallway was the *main* hall with registration and access to the larger evening events.
The big reason for this: feedback forms didn't ask about the merchant room, and the most common feedback was "we'd like more rituals and workshops." Given a finite space at the hotel (and no one willing to look for a new venue), the only way to get that was to cut the size of the merchant room, because "merchants aren't that high on people's priority list." Of course, when this was published online, people got upset, and the whole thing was handled poorly by the committee anyway ("We're cutting the room in half, but limiting the number of tables per vendor, so you only lose 3 vendors, really!")
One of the other big complaints here has been that merchants often don't get to attend workshops...and that leaving the merchant room open in the evenings (during drumming circles, the ball, and so on) means that merchants can't attend these either. But then, these events are things that people who aren't registered for the whole event can buy tickets for specifically, and many of *them* have been upset that the merchant room was already closed when they arrived.
I know it's been a bit point of contention in the last year at the one festival we attend regularly - last year, they cut the merchant room in half *after* the deadline for applying to be a merchant - leaving some merchants in the room, and some out in the hallway, which resulted in a rather unfair situation, since the merchant room had set hours and the hallway was the *main* hall with registration and access to the larger evening events.
The big reason for this: feedback forms didn't ask about the merchant room, and the most common feedback was "we'd like more rituals and workshops." Given a finite space at the hotel (and no one willing to look for a new venue), the only way to get that was to cut the size of the merchant room, because "merchants aren't that high on people's priority list." Of course, when this was published online, people got upset, and the whole thing was handled poorly by the committee anyway ("We're cutting the room in half, but limiting the number of tables per vendor, so you only lose 3 vendors, really!")
One of the other big complaints here has been that merchants often don't get to attend workshops...and that leaving the merchant room open in the evenings (during drumming circles, the ball, and so on) means that merchants can't attend these either. But then, these events are things that people who aren't registered for the whole event can buy tickets for specifically, and many of *them* have been upset that the merchant room was already closed when they arrived.
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