We heard from a member this week who spent yesterday's ICF Annual Conference the way she spends most Tuesdays: standing behind a folding table at her town's farmers market, weighing wedges and making change. The difference was a phone propped against the cooler, streaming the conference's afternoon block at low volume between customers.
"I caught the market outlook in three-minute pieces between a woman buying gouda for a party and a kid who wanted to know if the rind was 'the bad part,'" she told us. "It's not how I pictured attending a conference, but it's how the day actually went, and I'd rather catch it in pieces than not at all."
A market that's finally full again
Her stand has a reason to be busy this summer that has nothing to do with us. Markets across the country spent last year running at a fraction of their usual vendor rosters — one northern market that hosted around 110 vendors before the pandemic dropped to roughly 65 in 2020, and only this year climbed back toward something closer to a full lineup. Ours has told us the same story in miniature: fewer empty tables, more foot traffic, and customers who seem, in her words, "hungrier for a reason to stand outside and talk to a person."
That recovery is good news for her business and complicated for her calendar. A fuller market means longer lines and less downtime, which is exactly why she was watching a conference through a phone screen instead of a laptop at her kitchen table like most of us. If you were on the call and heard a brief burst of market chatter in the background during the afternoon Q&A, that was probably her connection, not a technical issue on our end.
She's not alone in this particular squeeze. One market this month reported a fifth fewer vendors than its pre-pandemic roster, even as demand ran strong enough that smaller stands were sold down to scraps by late morning — the manager there put it plainly: everyone was showing up with what they had and still couldn't keep the tables full. Our member's market has a similar shape this summer: fewer newcomers willing to commit to a weekly slot, but the regulars running harder than they have in two years to keep up with the line.
What she took from it anyway
Even in three-minute pieces, she came away with something concrete: a plan to try the pricing course we previewed at the conference, and a habit she picked up from another vendor two stalls down — writing the day's sell-through on a sticky note at close, so a slow Tuesday doesn't get remembered as worse than it was. Small, unglamorous, and exactly the kind of thing a conference is for, even one you watch in pieces.
If your summer looks like hers — busy stand, full calendar, no real chance to sit through a session start to finish — the conference recording will stay up for members through the end of August. Catch the rest of it whenever your own line finally thins out.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.