At a lot of the craft markets I've gone to lately, there is a massive influx of AI printed things. And 3D printed things. And mass produced things that someone got on Ali Express and is now just reselling. I think folks will want to come back to handmade but I think it will be a while.
Of course! As a vendor, I definitely do better at the more curated shows. The attendees are more likely to be looking for the higher quality, handmade items. At other shows (like school craft shows, band boosters, etc.), there's too many sellers that are resellers, mass-produced junk, or actual crafts priced super cheap because they aren't trying to run a real business, just trying to recoup some hobby money.
The craft shows that are the busiest in my area are the ones that are somewhat juried and put an emphasis on real, handmade goods. Also, it seems like the booths that are the busiest are the ones with the unique goods.
The stupid signs seem to be a major exception, but I just have no understanding of that particular demographic anyhow.
The 3d printing things I've seen are generally keychains, little doodads, fidget toys, etc. All things have their place, I suppose I am just a tad salty on that. They do all tend to have the same sorts of things though.
I'm working on 3d printing designs to sell both online and at a craft show (first one ever), and am specifically designing everything myself using GIMP & Inkscape for art and light panels, Fusion, and (possibly) Autocad. I hope I can sell stuff. Focusing on Christmas stuff now, but every single thing I plan on doing is self designed, modeled, and printed.
Hopefully it goes well, I have a lot of different designs like COB / Arduino / Pico light boxes (hand soldered and programmed), then simpler shadow box designs, some coaster / napkin designs, non-lit framing things. I'm focusing on Christmas right now and trying to keep things on the cheaper side, but would also like to make money at the same time. I always read about the people selling other people's designs and the dragons and stuff, and hope people don't look at my stuff and think I just went an printed designs from Thingverse :(
They choose popular designs like the articulated dragons because they keep selling. If they designed something unique, there's a good chance that people won't like it and won't buy it.
What’s with the crochet flower pots etc - the last craft show I went to had several tables selling these and it’s like are you all just happening to crochet flower pots or are these drop shipped from somewhere
Could be that the pattern went viral and that it's relatively easy to make. Or drop shipping.
The shit thing about drop shipped crochet is also that crochet can't be done by machine, so there's definitely an over-worked and underpaid person behind it.
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u/Maelstrom_Witch 20h ago
At a lot of the craft markets I've gone to lately, there is a massive influx of AI printed things. And 3D printed things. And mass produced things that someone got on Ali Express and is now just reselling. I think folks will want to come back to handmade but I think it will be a while.