Taking our little Gothic Jewellery brand on the road is always a challenging experience. But seeing all of your smiling faces through the wind, rain and knee deep mud at Download Festival makes it all worth while! This year was only our second time on the Holy Donington Turf (not as punters though, we've had plenty of experience doing that). Holy shit we were not prepared for the weather. Although we did have a lot more notice to make stock this year! It's strange that no matter how much warning we had, we couldn't prepare for how bad the grounds would be. Drownload was well and truly on the cards.
Things seemed to progressively get worse: from being sent home on the Tuesday due to the state of the grounds, to getting the van stuck in the mud immediately on Wednesday when we finally got on site. We spent Wednesday night sulking in our kitchen (with a van inside it) before heading off for a very early night. Come Thursday morning we felt much more optimistic and cracked on and got everything up! We managed to get the gazebo and all of the stock ready in a day which is record timing for us!
Watching 6 people run with bags and boxes at a mound of steaming wood chip & straw was a site to behold. It definitely helped to slightly dry out the floor inside the stall. In true unprepared style, I managed to miss wellies off my spreadsheet for the weekend. And off we trekked to the village, wading through the mud in search of some reasonably priced feet protection. Oh and what sights we did see along the way.
The trickiest part was probably keeping everything we owned out of the mud but as the punters arrived Friday, we relaxed a little and started to enjoy our time at Download. Even with 6 members of staff, it was pretty difficult to catch many bands. Slipknot were my one choice for the weekend and I chose very wisely - what a set!
T H A N K Y O U
In all honesty though, I need to firstly thank my team - Hannah, Becca, Ryan, Charlie & Ellen. It wouldn't have been possible without all of you, keeping our spirits lifted. I pray we'll be working together next year as the perfect dream team once again. Secondly - you lovely lot. It's hard to stress how important you all are. Without you we wouldn't be where we are today. Turning my hobby into a full time job and doing what I love every day wouldn't be possible without your love and support. It's so endearing to see your smiling faces showing us your Mysticum Luna collections in the pissing down rain! You rock!
Although we don't get out on the road much these days, we'll do whatever we can to get involved in more events. It can just be a little difficult as a two woman team! The time spent planning can almost push back our releases and we want to bring you awesome designs and customer service at all times. As long as they'll have us back, we'll see you next year Downloaders! In the meantime, you'll find us hiding in my garage trying to get mud off everything we own.
Love, Paige x
