HAPPENING OCTOBER 1 & 2 THROUGHOUT ILLINOIS & WISCONSIN
Presented by Vintage Shop Hop®
Thousands of shoppers will converge on northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin once again for the fall edition of the popular Vintage Shop Hop™ on Friday and Saturday, October 1 & 2, 2021. The event is a self-guided road trip for vintage and antique lovers in the northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin region to satisfy their ‘vintage’ addition and support small business at the same time.
Between 350 to 400 locally owned vintage shops, antique malls, women’s boutiques, occasional and pop-up shops, home décor, upscale consignment shops and vintage barn sales in the two state region are expected to participate in this semi-annual event. Why is the event so popular? One reason is that shop owners ‘roll out the red carpet’ for customers with demonstrations, discounts, giveaways, raffle drawings, as well as making it easy for shoppers with a list and map of hundreds of locations in two states.
“The idea was simply to give the shopper a reason to call their friends and spend the day shopping for vintage and antique decor in their own backyard,” says event organizer Ann Campos. “I wanted to make it easy for them to travel from shop to shop while supporting small business at the same time,” she said. She describes the event as ‘a road trip on steroids’ and goes on to say that the hardest part for shoppers is deciding on where to travel to for their road trip fun.
What started with 180 shops eight years ago, the Vintage Shop Hop has increased in popularity with each event. “It began as a spring event but after six years the shoppers and shop owners requested a second shop hop later in the year. As a result, I added a fall hop in 2019 making it a semi-annual event. These small business owners sometimes need a shot in the arm to boost their sales in a traditionally slow retail season and give shoppers a reason to leave the house, especially during the COVID world we live in today”, Campos says. The event idea came to Campos eight years ago after talking with a handful of her friends who owned vintage shops and had experienced slow sales during the then harsh winter.
“After spending several years producing vintage markets, I decided to marry my love of vintage with my background in tourism promotion, event planning and marketing to come up with a way to reach out and do something for local small business” she said, “the result is the Vintage Shop Hop.” Social media has played a huge role in the rapid growth of the event. The event Facebook fan page was launched during the first year and has grown to over 67,000 followers between the company’s three social media pages. “I believe the event grew so fast because these small business owners were looking for a unique, low-cost way to promote not only their shop but their town too, and the shoppers were excited to have a list of hundreds of fun shops dropped in their lap,” Campos said. The event stretches across two states from the Mississippi River on the west to Lake Michigan on the east, goes north to the Stevens Point & Green Bay in Wisconsin and south to I-80 in Illinois.
Each shop is required to have an “in-store” promotion for the weekend, and many shops go beyond just complimentary refreshments (like mimosas and dessert treats). “We encourage the shops to create a day unlike the other 363 days of the year,” say Campos. As a result, shoppers will find fun promotions like “pop a balloon” or “spin the wheel” to determine their discount, door prizes, meet-the-maker, paint demos, live music, food trucks and free swag bags just for stopping in. Others create punch cards promotions to get people moving around their region, hire live music and invite food trucks to park in their lots. All shops will be ready and waiting to greet new faces to their store and provide the shoppers with the best in customer service.
Many of the shops are set in historic and unique buildings, in downtowns, villages, and the countryside brimming with history which sets them apart from their competitors in strip malls. Step into Gracie’s Hutch in Stoddard, Wisconsin where you’ll find a sweet shop filled with primitives, vintage and sweet home décor housed in a quaint 1860 Methodist church. Visit a 1925 label-printing-company that now houses trend + relic, a gorgeous home décor shop filled to the brim with furniture, antiques, on-trend décor, jewelry and seasonal fun. “These shop owners are very passionate about the history of their antiques as well as their buildings. In order to compete with the big box stores, small business owners have to be creative in their marketing efforts and work extra hard to get noticed,” Campos said. “I’m just happy I can help them out by using my experience to bring customers to their doorstep with this fun shopping event. To my knowledge, it’s the biggest event of its kind in the Midwest.”
Road trip planning for the Vintage Shop Hop is made easy with the interactive Google Map and Master List of Shops. The Google Map includes all shop details that can be accessed on mobile devices while shoppers are traveling the area. The list and map are both found on the event’s blog page 24/7/365 and can be printed off www.vintageshophop.blogspot.com or follow the facebook page at www.facebook.com/VintageShopHopEvent. The Google Map can be linked to here: https://bit.ly/OctoberShopHopMap
