With the arrival of Saturday, so too came my favorite part of
Texas Tiki Week: The tiki marketplace! It seems like those folks living on the West Coast have some sort of marketplace every week or so. Their embarrassment of riches in that area is just obscene. For us folks living in Texas, however, tiki marketplace comes but once a year (okay, fine. I'll grant you that
Dallas Tiki Week has one as well, but that one's a four-hour drive for me, as opposed to 40 minutes). Tiki marketplace is an opportunity to engage in tiki sensory overload. This year, it was at
Contigo, where it was two years ago when I attended my first marketplace. This year, instead of taking up a corner of the parking lot, the marketplace occupied the courtyard and a large section of the interior, as a hedge against fickle Texas weather.
I have to say, after some cursory doubts, the arrangement turned out to be fantastic. This was the largest marketplace ever. I'm not privy to the actual numbers, but I'd say there were twice as many vendors as last year and easily triple the number of shoppers. More important than the raw numbers, though, was the sheer diversity of the vendors. There weren't 20 people peddling vintage clothes, or 17 pushing mugs. There were so many different people with a broad array of wares. Yes, vintage clothing and mugs were well-represented, but there were wood carvers, cookies (!), hairdressers, travel agents(!), artists, lamp-makers, jewelry-makers... the selection was overwhelming. And quality across the board.
I know I'll leave out people if I try to list everyone vending, but I gotta try to list everyone vending. I could've happily blown thousands of dollars in a very short amount of time, but alas, I did not have thousands of dollars available for said blowing. Vendors included (in no particular order):
I know I'm leaving some out, so anyone who sees an omission may message me and I'll update that list. But damn, that's an impressive lineup!
Sadly, this is my final report. I wasn't able to make it to the
Hale Pele popup that evening, which really stinks, because Hale Pele was the first "real" tiki bar I ever visited (after a string of unimpressive pretenders) and got me hooked on the whole thing. We were also unable to make the Lake Austin cruise on Sunday, which concluded Texas Tiki Week. This also stinks, because we really like the folks behind
Quiet Village, who provided the cocktails on the cruise. I sincerely hope the cruise becomes a tradition, because I'd hate to think I missed my chance!
That said, let me offer my completely biased and partial critique of Texas Tiki Week. First up, this was probably the best one yet. Again, I have no idea of how much money was raised for
USBGATX, bur from a purely spectator's point of view, the week was ambitious and fun. And the beverage sponsors! Holy moly, there was an impressive lineup of quality spirits on parade this year! Nothing against Jaegermeister, but the broadened palate was nice.
Nothing's perfect, and there were issues. Having so many seminars during the day, during the week, has got to cut into attendance. I could only get away from work a few times, and missed several seminars I'd have liked to see.
Shannon Mustipher's seminar, for instance--I've heard her on so many podcasts this past year that she feels like a close, personal friend, and it would've been nice to get an autographed copy of her book.
John Mulder's seminar had a nice turnout, but I know of several people who'd have liked to attend but couldn't because of the timing. Also, I recall that far more people participated in the paint-your-own-tiki-mug event last year, which not surprisingly, was held in the evening. This is a nifty offering, and I hope it stays as an ongoing tradition.
A significant part of the problem stems from the fact that, unlike the big annual tiki events like Tiki Caliente, Tiki Oasis, Luau at the Lake or Hukilau, Texas Tiki Week doesn't have a physical base of operations for the events to center around. They're dependent on the kindness and generosity of the various, disparate venues around town to cooperate and provide facilities for the various programming events. This can come up and burn the organizers, as we saw this year when Anthem abruptly left Texas Tiki Week high and dry less than a day prior to the Rainey Street Crawl. And as I said in a previous post, Rainey Street was overrun by a party crowd that didn't give two shakes about tiki.
A partial solution is obvious, if not simple: Get some dedicated tiki venues to build the week's events around. If I won a hundred million in the lottery tomorrow, I could build a Polynesian-themed resort hotel and we'd all be sipping mai tais by the pool thinking how awesome like is. Short of that, we have to depend on those intrepid die-hards who keep plugging along, trying to open tiki bars locally ("localy" being a relative term, as I don't live in, or particularly near, Austin). Now, there's no way Tiki Tatsu-Ya could accommodate everyone participating in Texas Tiki Week next year. Heck, if the fates smile on us and Quiet Village opens by summer 2020, that still wouldn't be enough venue space. But that would provide an anchor, a nexus, a base of operations to serve as a reference point throughout the week. Heck, assuming the Esquire Tavern group gets their Bamboo Ben-designed tiki bar on the River Walk up and running in the next 11 months, between them and Hot Joy, there's no reason why San Antonio can't be a serious participant in Texas Tiki Week (yes, it's origins are in support of USBGATX, but it's not called
Austin Tiki Week, now is it?). I could envision a party bus from Austin to SA. I can also envision a home bar tour around Austin, as I know there are enough impressive home bars there to blow the minds of some of these out-of-towners that come in thinking Texas is a tiki wasteland (which it was not too long ago, but not quite so much anymore).
My carping from the peanut gallery aside, I applaud all of the volunteers who made this thing happen. They did an outstanding job, and did so while facing down a daunting array of obstacles and SNAFUs--only some of which I'm sure I'm aware of. Having been ringleader in my share of non-profit events, I know it's a thankless job where success or failure is measured by the enjoyment of others. In this case, many, many others experienced a tremendous amount of enjoyment this year. Kudos to everyone involved--you deserve all the accolades coming your way.
Texas Tiki Week: Opening Night
Texas Tiki Week: Eekum Bookum
Texas Tiki Week: Rainey Street Crawl
Now Playing: Ethel Azama Exotic Dreams
Chicken Ranch Central
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