Maui vendors set up shop at Made in Hawaii Festival
Local businesses seeking holiday boost for in-person, virtual event
Sewing “every night” through this weekend is one Maui small business owner’s plan as he and his handcrafted wares set up shop on Oahu for the annual Made In Hawaii Festival that attracts thousands of shoppers looking for locally made products.
“Just by the sheer days, it’s going to be the biggest (event that) we have ever done,” said Shannon Kaleo Loo, founder of Mise Kimono, based in Wailuku.
Loo, whose business uses Japanese imported fabric to make Japanese-inspired items, had wanted to participate in the Made in Hawaii Festival back in 2020, but his hopes were dashed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been something that’s been on our radar for a long time, but we weren’t prepared,” he said earlier this week of the state’s longest-running showcase of Made in Hawaii products. “Now we get to do it.”
Loo said his “Tomi” bags are his biggest seller and that he made “hundreds” to sell. He plans to keep on sewing them every night between festival days. The bags feature a variety of Japanese fabrics and colors. Loo’s business inspiration is from his “Grandma Tomiko,” where the name “Tomi” bags come from.
The in-person portion of the festival began Thursday and runs through Sunday at the Ala Moana Center parking structure, a change from past years when the festival was held at the mostly indoor Neal S. Blaisdell Center. Attendees must buy tickets and either present a vaccination verification card or a negative COVID-19 test for this year’s event.
Aside from being on the ground on Oahu, some Maui vendors are strictly virtual and part of the festival’s “Online Marketplace” where products and businesses’ websites are featured. Vendors and products can be found at www.Madein HawaiiFestival.com.
One of those vendors is ‘Alohi Images Maui, whose owner Shelley Pellegrino said she wanted to be at the festival in person, but with logistics and the ongoing pandemic, she decided to make her first entry to the festival a virtual one.
“I’m appreciative of any opportunity to get my products out there,” Pellegrino said on Thursday.
Although the online marketplace has been up and running prior to the in-person festival, Pellegrino said she did see more traffic on her website on Thursday. She also saw some customers appear days prior to the in-person festival launch.
Pellegrino sells photo cards with pictures she has taken herself of plants, flowers, landscapes and elements of Hawaiian culture.
She also hopes that in the future festivals such as Made in Hawaii and the Made in Maui County Festival, which she was also a part of last week, all keep their online components each festival, as that’s a way local vendors can also broaden their exposure around the world.
During the pandemic, Pellegrino said she missed out on in-person events such as the Ben Franklin craft fair and the Made in Maui County Festival, which she has been a part of since its inception.
“I enjoy that face-to-face, that interface with people,” Pellegrino said.
In those in-person events, Pellegrino puts up a board that features all of her cards that people can peruse.
During the pandemic, Pellegrino did participate in the Pop-Up Makeke online marketplace, which provided a centralized online
marketplace for Hawaii’s small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was created by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement in April 2020.
Another first time Made in Hawaii Festival participant from the Valley Isle is Maui Chili Chili Oil. Owner Deron Furukawa said they are an online participant.
He joked that if he went to the in-person festival on Oahu “guarantee hives that one,” alluding to how nervous he would be.
Furukawa is looking for more exposure for his chili oil, a product he just started selling commercially this year. His chili oil, developed during the stay-at-home days of the pandemic, can be used with different combinations of seasonings and placed on eggs, ramen, tofu, fish, steak bites and other foods.
Like others, including Pellegrino, Furukawa prepared hard for the online Made in Maui County Festival last week, which experienced technical difficulties on Saturday and crashed for a little more than five hours.
The Maui Chamber of Commerce along with officials from Mayor Michael Victorino’s office are working to see if there are dates and potential spaces for a rescheduled Made in Maui event.
It would include both an in-person and virtual component, “to help make up for the frustration all felt when the virtual servers on the Mainland went down” and attendees could not buy and participate,
Pamela Tumpap, president of the Maui Chamber of Commerce, said on Thursday.
The chamber had partnered with Eventhub, a management platform for live events and marketplaces, to host the 8th annual Hawaiian Airlines Made in Maui County Festival.
“We’re getting down the dates that work best, striving to create an even better outcome for vendors and the community with more options now available as restrictions have changed,” Tumpap said.