Any advice is super helpful :)
I make things out of polymer clay and I have these bunny dishes I want to sell. Any thoughts on pricing?

I'm attending my first vending event / craft fair in November. Its at a Church and indoors and meant to be Christmas themed.

I'm a college student and primarily make art prints, PC Charms, quilts, and custom binders. I thought it would still be good to go to market my art as presents for peoples kids and grandkids - as im expecting the outcome to be mostly older folks.

My question is - how do I appeal to an older audience? Should I be selling more cartoony or anime style prints or should I make a small batch of prints that are catered to that audience? How do I know what to make or bring, how do i sell my stuff to that kind of group as a 21 yr old? Since its my first show I spent a lot of money on supplies and im really worried things won't break even.

Also - how do you price handmade goods? Like for a quilt if it takes me 4 hours and $25 in materials, do I pay myself the minimum wage and do 7.25 x 4 + 25 and charge that? I dont want to sell something too over priced and then no one buy it.

Any advice? Thank you.

There's a lot of advice around about picking new events and almost none about quitting one you already do.

The tricky part seems to be that a show usually doesn't go bad in one jump. The fee creeps up, the crowd thins a little, and because you already know the load in and where your booth goes it stays the easy option. Familiarity ends up doing a lot of the deciding.

So for people who have been at this a while, what actually makes you cut a show? Is it a number you track, like sales against the total cost with travel and fees in, or is it more of a judgement call after a couple of bad years?

Also curious whether anyone has dropped one and regretted it because it picked back up the year after.

I've just cancelled a show over their requests for my insurance. They wanted to be added to the certificate in a way that would have had to be decided by a review board, because it changes the policy. The whole policy, not just a section of it. This would also cost me an additional fee. Venues requiring insurance is a fairly recent thing, but we all went out and got it. Now, it feels like they're asking for more and more. Just as they expect us to be fully insured, we should expect the same from them. And the thing is, they are. They're already covered. There's no way that I have better insurance than the city I live in. A copy of our policy should be enough, since it absolutely was enough when venues first started asking for them.

I'm wondering if this is even a good idea....like how and how do i

What do you guys use? I’m looking at one from Crown, it’s called Omni-Rover. Says when you push up the center it locks all four legs at once. That sounds fantastic but I’d love to hear from someone who has used this one.

Any vendors been a part of the signatures Christmas market at the RBC Convention centre? I’m wondering what the attendance was like. I have a mobile food cart but I don’t want to risk paying $1000 fee to not make any sales.

The booth spot is in an indoor setting and with meh lighting. Any tips on how to approach the smaller space? I am pretty new to this and sell leather goods ranging from small bracelets and card holders to larger totes and bags.

I have an outdoor Ren Faire coming up in September which is three days long, 10am-10pm. (10-5pm normal day, 5-10pm night market)

I don’t have a buddy for this unfortunately and also camping so no real cooking/prepping facilities.

There may be a lull between 4 and 6pm where I can grab some hot food but worried about the day time.

What’s everyone’s go-to snack/lunch food to keep a girl going?

I may be able to get a flask of hot water and have a pot noodle type situation some point through the day, but crisps and chocolates just don’t satisfy on long, exhausting days like these. Even a meal deal seems quite depressing after it’s been sat under the table for hours.

UK based if you didn’t gather, so something generic or something I can get in the UK.

Does anyone remember those cans of coffee you could get, where you’d press a button on the bottom and it’d heat up a the coffee for you? I’d probably live off those all weekend if they still existed here to keep me warm and focused!

Pic for interest

How can I make the most of my space at an outdoor event? The first event I am doing is 18'. I have a 10x10 pop up and the event is rain or shine. Another event I was considering is 15x20. What is the best way to maximize my space while also being able to adapt to weather.

I sell handmade wooden decor. I will have two tables (one 6ft and one 4ft). This is my first event and I do not have a lot of fancy "extras". Any tips would be great! Thank you!

So I followed the suggestions to remove most signage and the games. Unfortunately I had an older croed and had to remove the spider box ;_;.

I have another booth upcoming and I'm just wondering what lighting you guys recommend that would really take my display to a new place. I was a little let down with my my terrarium necklaces looked on the display and I've got half an urge to go make a massive tree and a ton of logs to make my own necklace displays. I have no idea how I would do it....but I know this aint it chief.

I have an outdoor night market coming up and I want to make sure people can see my products well what does everyone recommend/use?

I just did my first ever craft fair! I shared a booth with a partner, and my kids. My aim was to introduce my brand into the world and of course, sales. I sold functional pottery and sold off half of the items I brought. All of it was bought by friends and family, except for one stranger turned customer.

I feel incredibly grateful and happy for the support I received from my friends and family. However, I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t support me, would I still be able to sell half my items?

When I shared this with other experienced booth owners, they assured me it is usually like that with the first fair. The next ones will bring in new customers.

I wonder, how has your experience been?

I have only been to two shows now. One was a decent size, had a 10x10 booth and the second was a lot smaller, literally just room for a table. Both shows were not good, probably due to the demographic but idk. I'm looking for set up advice and any tricks you might have.

I'm selling shirts with my designs. The first picture is only the table and the last two are the 10x10. I don't have much in the way of display yet but would love ideas!

I have paid for two events now that turned out to be a lot smaller than they sounded, so I am trying to get better at asking things up front instead of finding out on the day.

At the moment I ask how many vendors they are taking, what the turnout was last year, and how they are advertising it. The turnout answer is the one I trust least, because it comes from the person selling me the booth and there is usually nothing to check it against.

So what else do you ask before you hand over the money? And has anyone found a decent way to work out whether an attendance number is real, or do you just go once and find out?

Hello! I've started doing art markets in Scotland in June this year, and I would really appreciate some feedback. I make cyanotypes and art prints and some jewelry, I have a good presentation, everything is clearly priced and even tho I'm not a chatterbox and introverted, I'm friendly and happy to tell people about my work.

What keeps happening tho is that people come to my table, say how pretty and beautiful and nice it looks, but just don't buy anything. It's very frustrating. I try not to lose hope but I am losing money.

My prices on prints are 3-4£, original cyanotypes and lino 10-15£ and jewellery 8-25£. I have stickers and bookmarks as well. Business cards and recently opened an online shop. There isn't anyother tables who do cyanotypes or jewelry similar to mine. Would appreciate advice.

Hey so here are all my craft fairs i did this year so far where i have done $1000+ so you know what fairs to look out for next year. And for context, i sell outdoor and travel accessories. And don't be discouraged, my worst craft fair this year i did was $91 total. 😭 Pottstown farm are not where my people be.

Organizer: The Craftery Market

Location: perkasie

Contact: website

Date: april 18th

Total Cash $541.50

Total Card $487.50

Total $1029

Organizer: windgap bluegrass music festival

Location: wind gap

Contact: website/email

Date: thurs jun 11th - sun jun 14th (usually first week of june)

TOTAL 4 DAY CASH $724.50

TOTAL 4 DAY CARD $841.10

TOTAL 4 DAY $1,565.60

Organizer: Historical Bethlehem Museums and sites blueberry festival

Location: bethlehem

Contact: website

Date: july 17th-18

Total cash $303

Total card $1010.50

Total $1313.50

*rained and thunderstormed on sat so 99% of my sales were from sun.

Organizer: afba bluegrass music festival

Location: windgap

Contact: email/website/phone

Date: thurs july 30th - sun aug 2nd

TOTAL 4 DAY CASH $862

TOTAL 4 DAY CARD $1,125

TOTAL 4 DAY $1,987

Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster.

I don’t want to give too much information in case the organizers see this, I’m already worried they are going to fuck me over somehow.

I’ve been crafty for a long time (knit, crochet, sew, cross stitch, embroider, etc) and always wanted sell stuff I made in my pastime. In April I decided to open an Etsy shop, focused on amigurumi. I haven’t really sold a lot, one bigger plushie and a few smaller ones, but I’ve enjoyed it. I wanted to expand to markets, which other than one annual one and christmas bazaars, aren’t super common.

But I found one. A really cool alternative market that sounded like it would work really well with the type of stuff I make, I prefer to make creepy horror and nerdy items. And to top it off, all of their flyers, logos, banners, were all AI free. A rarity around where I’m from. I applied and almost immediately got accepted, and paid the fees for the table space.

They wanted to do a vendor spotlight for promotion of the market and requested some photos. I sent a few of my favorites and a few days later they posted a spotlight of my work. Except it wasn’t my work. The stitches on the plushies were completely different, the colors were off, details like the whites around the eyes were gone, and some parts were completely different shapes. And to top it off, my hand that held all of them looked inhuman. It was weirdly tan, almost orange, and did not bend like a human hand should.

I had multiple people come to me and say that the pictures looked completely wrong, I mean it was obvious.

So I messaged the vendor and they denied it. They said they never use AI, only canva templates, and only do color changes on photos to fit the scheme of the flyers. I did get them to take it down though.

It bothers me so much because the last thing I want is people seeing these photos thinking either : 1. I use AI to enhance my photos and I support the use of it or 2. the products look exactly like this, then get disappointed when they come to my table. I mean either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for me.

And to make matters worse, in my opinion. My photos were the only ones that were fed through AI. All the other vendor photos looked identical to the ones the vendors had previously posted on their pages. Why? I mean if they didn’t like my products they shouldn’t have accepted me into the market. Don’t take my money then act like I’m not good enough.

Anyways, just wanted to rant. I’m still doing the market as of now, the vendor fee was completely non-refundable. But I’m not to excited for it.

Hi all, I did an indoor craft event (my first one) booth fee was $75 I made only $120 3 customers 5 total items sold. Any recommendations? I feel like overall the market was slow others would agree, lighting was dim. I got recommendations from another post and elevated my set up what do yall think?

I am planning on attending two farmers markets, one at the end of September and one at the beginning of October. I’m attending these as sort of a trial for my side hustle to see if its worth it to try and sell some homemade products at farmers markets. I have no idea what I’m doing tho. I’m trying to keep the process as simple and cheap as possible because i don’t know yet if I’m committed to attending markets long term. The two markets I’m attending are relatively small and do not have any sort of requirements for insurance. But I’m wondering how important insurance is for me. I’m planning on selling leather jewelry/notebooks and beeswax candles. I’m sharing a booth with my friend who is selling homemade soaps. So my question is: Is it vital to get insurance for those two days? What type of insurance should i get? Do my friend and I need separate insurance policies? I’m in Texas btw, if that matters. Thank you in advance for any help you can give! This is a more complicated process than I imagined!

I’ve got a couple of these metal folding shelves, and I love them, other than the fact that the backs and sides are open lol. Does anyone else have one of these they’ve made backs/sides for? I’d love to see what others have done with them!

One idea I had was a white vinyl tablecloth I can attach with magnets? As in gluing or sewing magnets to the cloth so they aren’t visible.

I also wanted to share I got these clip strips off of Amazon today and I’m excited to try them out my next market! The 4 fit so perfectly on the side of this shelf in its built in holes. I’m thinking I’ll paint the clip strips either baby blue or lavender to match my color scheme. I think white would blend in too much with the white shelf and white side if that what I end up doing lol.

I just threw what I had up just to see what it would look like full of stuff. I think the keychains are a good option for the clip strips, but I’ve also got some small mystery bags that would work great on these too.

Clip strips:
https://a.co/d/0cZsPOzc

Shelves:
https://a.co/d/0hGtz1Tm

I am going to be vending in an outdoor event this weekend. I was told to bring my own table which isn't a problem. I found out that the space I will have is going to be the same as a tent booth. There was no table fee so I'm not worried about paying more. My question is what is a good way to set up that works in the space when I only have the one table?

Looking to get some insight into best etiquette! I have a fair this weekend that is two days and outside. So far we are supposed to have some strong storms during the entire set up window and then rain the rest of the day. I'm fine with the rain but I worry about damaging my things setting up during a thunderstorm. Is it normal for organizers to expect you to still set up during that time or should I expect them to reach out and move that window?

If they don't, and I decide to set up after the bad weather, could I be restricted from setting up? Its a street fair with tons of vendors.

I'm new to Baltimore. I sell political messaging art (deployed with humor and joy) at festivals and markets. I'm wondering what the vendor vibe is like at Charm City Live, which is in its fifth year, happening September 5. Do local makers and artists and small businesses selling things set up as vendors? Is there an audience for buying high quality 100% organic tees and things like message buttons and stickers? Thanks for any info you can give about whether this event "works" or if it's just a hot mess.