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• Joseph's Grainery: The partnership of the Thorp Mill with this Washington -based, family <br />owned wheat farm and grain has been extraordinarily successful. Joseph's Grainery products <br />are sold at the Mill and help support museum operations. The company has offered support <br />and promotional materials to the Thorp Mill for events such as the auction and antique <br />market. <br />A Simple Life Magazine: A nationally distributed lifestyle magazine. A Simple Life, focuses on <br />country antiques and folk art, history and pioneer life. The magazine is supports museum <br />operations and the Thorp Mill Museum is the first and only distribution point in Washington <br />for the magazine. A Simple Life magazine helps present and promote antique events such as <br />the "Days of the Pioneer," an antique market and event supporting the Museum of <br />Appalachia in Eastern Tennessee. Continued development our partnership with A Simple Life <br />will enable the Thorp Mill to reach a wide audience well beyond the immediate region. <br />• Other Partnerships: Thorp Mill Antiques Market partnered with a number of other local <br />businesses, particularly small -businesses in the past few years. These include (in 2015) two <br />independently -owned food trucks—the Ellensburg -based Tacos Chalitos and Clarkston -based <br />Kenzie's Coffee, and (in 2016) the Ellensburg -based restaurant The Valley Cafe. We hope to <br />expand such partnerships in the coming years, particularly with more Kittitas County based <br />food trucks and providers. In 2015, we also contracted with Ellensburg -based Simplified <br />Technologies, LLCto supply wireless internet service for the event, allowing businesses to run <br />credit cards and giving appraisers the ability to research items they assessed. Further, for <br />advertising purposes, we worked with Yakima -based American Primitives Market to co - <br />promote our event statewide in 2016. <br />Potential Partnerships: Ample space at Thorp School allows for activities that can <br />complement our show and attract additional customers. We are exploring the possibility of <br />vehicle shows on the grounds that same day. Groups contacted include the Vintage Campers <br />Club and the Old -Time Iron Club. Both have expressed interest. We expect our negotiations <br />with those organizations to be complete before the public Lodging Tax Meeting in November. <br />6. Please explain what plans exist to allow this project to become self-sustaining. Include any plans <br />for ticket sales, event sponsors, and other cost -recovery models. <br />Unlike the Mill's annual auction, which is in its 26th year, the Antiques Show is an iterative work in <br />progress. Our second year of the show fell short of our initial projections for reasons expressed in <br />question #3: primarily, that we scheduled the 2016 event on the same weekend as the Clayson <br />Farms show. This limited our number and quality of vendors, which in turn limited visitor turnout. <br />Also, we cut our advertising budget by over 15%. By choosing a unique weekend for 2017 we feel <br />confident that we can begin an upward spiral of better vendors attracting more visitors which will <br />attract more vendors in future years. Having used the complete public areas of the new Thorp <br />School this year, we plan to expand our venue in 2019 or sooner to use the old Thorp School as <br />well. Having received positive feedback from vendors this year, we plan to gradually increase our <br />entry and vendor charges to match those in competing well-established shows. Profitability in <br />our first two years and projections for the next three years are shown in the table below. <br />County -wide Lodging Tax Application Page 116 <br />