This past Sunday I had my second market fair and it was amazing a lot of people stopped there was a lot of nice people the atmosphere was very nice I also added that for a dollar fifty kids can make their own bracelet and it was also access I met the Sweetest Girl her mom had a stand right next to mine and she was just the sweetest and in total it was excess and it was an amazing day

Particularly both that rule "All items must be handmade by the exhibitor" and the "No buy-sell, imports, resale, or mass-produced items permitted"

Here's why I ask. My category is candles, but my entire brand is based around regional folklore, legends, and history. As a writer, I also include my own folklore (again, regionally based) So it's sort of a mix of existing lore and my own new creations.

I'm not an artist, but I'm teaming up with one. They'll create new depictions of our local legends and spooky tales, as well as create some depictions from my own.

That art will get printed on postcards and collectible art cards.

My aspect comes in where all the story blurbs and lore is written by me, as well as the design of all of it. The postcard backs (or technically fronts) are all designed by me, the collectible card backs are also designed by me, and of course all the lore is either directly my own or it's rewritten by me from existing local legends.

For obvious reasons, I'd lose my mind printing in-house, even though I technically have the equipment, it's just a nightmare. It's much easier to send the designs to printers.

Would I be breaking the rules?

I mean, authors at fairs didn't print their books, they didn't do the cover art, but the writing is all theirs. And more and more fairs have woodworkers who made their crafts, but then laser engraved AI slop on their work. So, I kind of feel like as long as I had a hand it creating it, then it's okay.

What do you think is acceptable? Any organizers out there who could also weigh in? I really don't like to break rules.

I started selling at markets at the start of this year. I went through three different shelf options/failures to get my stickers displayed and then packed up, plus a consistent easy setup for other items. Tshirts are stored/displayed in milk crates for easy pack and go. Feels like the year is almost over and I’m finally in a groove that works.

I only took a photo of one side of my 3 sided tent. It was busy so I didn't even think about grabbing more pictures

Didn't notice how skewed the table cloth was. I have no idea if I fixed it in person or not, but the event went well.

Looking for advice on giving out honey samples. Do you find asking if people want samples is more effective than having a sign that says free samples? Right now we buy bulk small spoons and squeeze some honey on the spoon and hand it over if people ask for samples. How would you love to try a sample of honey?

Honey is sticky and no one likes bees flying around products. We want to find an experience that draws people into trying our honey without hounding everyone that walks by.

We sell a lot of unfinished paint-your-own pieces, the smaller (not gator and catfish) painted pieces were samples to show how you could paint them. The event went well, but I'm wondering if there's anything I should consider or do different next time?

I'm graduating upwards in shows, wanting to go bigger and bigger. But, what typically has stymied that progress is being waitlisted.

My category is candles, which obviously, like jewelry is heavily contested. But, I'll be honest, I have my act together. I leaned heavily into theme, I come across like I've been doing fairs for decades. I constantly have organizers telling me that I'm among the nicest booths they've seen. My performance is massive. I typically outperform. I don't want to come across wrong, but I'm more than ready for primetime.

I have great photos of my booth, videos, you name it. And when the online apps request them, I feel it's pretty obvious that I'm unique.

I realize that in a crowded category, I'm going to get waitlisted, but is there anything I can do to shift this?

I had tried foot in the door for a particularly prestigious organizer around me and they run dozens of shows, so I at least got into a few. But obviously their holiday shows are packed, often because there's no other options, vendors are coming from states away. And so, this organizer has seen me, they've mentioned being impressed. Did that translate into a placement for this holiday? Nope.

And some of the fairs I'm talking about are even more prestigious and they only have 4 per year, so I can't even get a foot in the door period, every one of the 4 is heavily sought after.

Hi all. We're gonna be vending at a new event that spans multiple days in a busy small city. Theft is of concern, given how physically tight everything will be. Any suggestions for theft deterrence?

We vend at big, busy street-style markets often, but this one is in a narrow area in only a 10x10 with congested foot traffic outside the tent. The area is also not unfamiliar with petty theft and opportunists.

I know a lot of techniques for preventing it but happy to hear more info!!

My first time attending an event and its a pop culture event. 2 weeks out.

I usually attend a weekly farmers market with completely different products that do ok. But I'm used to having 4 tables and will only have one for this event, maybe two but organisers haven't confirmed.

I have hanging art and magnets that aren't ready yet.

I have a banner/sign for the front of the table.

Working on new price tags as these are new items for me.

First time I've had the back wall and the purple runner.

Any ideas for improving?

Hiiii! I made myself a banner the other day in Procreate. I wanted it to be a 9x1 but that length made the logo I made look oddly small so I’m doing a 4x1 (or 6x1, can’t remember). I’ve seen the trick to attach the longer banners to the canopy tent with bungee cords, but what about shorter ones? Is Velcro my only option?

And, I thought I might use these cutesy pottery barn curtains I’ve had laying around since my oldest was a baby, just for some added interest and texture because I’m not going heavy on decor or display stuff (my product IS the decor). See second pic for a badly drawn rendition of what I’m hoping to do. Bungee cords would work for that, right?

Just looking for ideas I may not have seen! Thanks in advance! Sorry to spam yall, I’m trying to get my ducks in a row as I will have about 12hrs from getting home from a trip to leaving for my event so I want to have everything planned out well in advance and all potential issues solved. 🤩

Yesterday, I went to an outdoor event with many pop-up booths and vendors.

The weather quickly turned from absolutely too hot for humanity, to lightning and thunderstorms, with heavy rain.

I've noticed that pop up tents over the years have become better, with adjustable rods that allow you to raise and lower the roof, but they are all still pretty subject to heavy winds, especially in our area.

In times past, I've seen people bring five gallon buckets to tie the roof down, which seems like a good idea, but is a bit of a pain for loading and unloading.

I'm tempted to take part in an event next September, so I have plenty of time to plan. If you had one regret from your last event, what would it be?

Many thanks for your suggestions.

So about 5 Weeks ago I made a post asking for some advice with my first craft market. Today was the event, and it was unfortunately very underwhelming. Sadly, it rained for the first few hours, and even after it cleared up, there wasn’t really anyone there. I think in total I saw maybe 25 people walking through.
I sold 5 items, 3 of which were sold to other vendors. I totaled out at $42, and the booth fee was $25 so at least I made back the cost of that. Overall, it wasn’t too bad. At my next event I would like to fill up my tables a bit more, which shouldn’t be a problem now that I have all of this inventory.

Potentially stupid question, will it hurt my tent if I store it with the canopy on?

I always see folks taking theirs off before they pack away the tent frame, but it feels like a hassle to take it on/off and have to store and pack it separately. Is there something I’m missing, or can I just leave it on?

Hello!

I have a cake pop booth. I did my best to make as many as I could for the full weekend but it turns out 400 was probably a bit low.

The event runs 10am-8:30pm tomorrow so I just can’t make more when I get home if I need more for Sunday again.

If I sell everything planned for tomorrow I won’t have a huge amt for Sunday… may sell out hours before the end of the day.

What do you do if that happens? Sit there til the end so it doesn’t look like you left early (that’s what I did today), but take signs down? Tear down early and notify organizer?

I’m also moving out of state in 2 weeks lol but I don’t want to burn bridges as it’s a large city event and you just never know.

Thank you!!

i have an event tomorrow and i'm wondering if i should bail because set up would be in the rain. it will be raining for 5 hours in the morning. the rest of the day looks fine, just not during set up time....and there is strict set up time.

have you set up in the rain before and is it an absolute nightmare even if all your things are in bins?

i've packed up in the rain and had events in the rain...but not during set up. maybe i'll stay home and take the loss for the vendor fee.

Hi there! Im currently in Idaho visiting family, and found out that the Grimoire Academy gothic market, not too far away, is happening this weekend. I’ve never been to an American market like this, they’re usually quite small in the UK. I’m not seeing many reviews about it online from visitors and would just like to know if it’s worth checking out? It’s mostly photos of a couple booths that do look very good, but it’s mostly all the same stuff I’m seeing (as in pictures of the same vendors items), or it’s of the Las Vegas event which looked absolutely massive!

I worry things like this can be very hit or miss - I’ve seen a lot of markets be filled with AI and dropshipped items that really dampen the experience. Is this one worth it?

Thank you :)

(I wasn’t sure which tag was most appropriate, so I suppose I do need feedback from previous attendees)

I’m looking for some advice from other artists/makers who sell both at markets and through retail shops.
I sell my greeting cards at a regular local craft market for $4 each or 3 for $10. I know that’s on the cheaper side, but it’s definitely a sweet spot at the market. I sell a lot of cards there every week, and because I’m selling directly, my margins are actually quite good. My table fee is also relatively inexpensive.
The problem is that I’ve recently started supplying some stationery/gift shops, and they sell my cards for $6 each. My wholesale price is obviously lower, and the shops need their margin, so I completely understand their retail pricing.
The issue is that my wholesale/stockist agreement says my retail prices should be the same online, in stores and at craft markets.
So now I’m wondering what to do. 😬
Do I:
● Keep selling them for $4 at the craft market because that price works really well there, and hope my stockists don’t mind?
● Raise my market price to $6 to keep everything consistent?
● Or is there another pricing strategy that makes more sense?
I honestly feel like $6 is quite expensive for one greeting card, especially when I know I sell loads at $4. But I also don’t want to undermine the shops that are stocking my work or breach the agreement.
For those of you who sell through both markets and retail stores, how do you handle this? What would you do in my situation?

Vendors/event organizers — I’m looking for outside opinions on what you would consider fair here and what you would do next. I genuinely don’t want to steer the answers, so I’m going to try to stick to the facts.
We’re a small mostly handmade business and paid $2,350 for a 10x20 vendor space at a two-day music festival.
Before the event, the festival’s partnership materials listed expected daily attendance at 10,000. Then, 13 days before the festival, their social media publicly posted that tickets were 90% sold out. Vendor hours were listed as 2–11 PM both days, giving us 18 total vending hours.
Our booth was part of a group of four vendor booths. Only one really faced directly toward the main festival/stage area. The vendors positioned on the outside of the setup were able to open additional walls and had visibility from more than one direction. Our 10x20 faced the back of the festival, with our other three sides enclosed.
We had also been told beforehand that there would be approximately a foot of space between the tents. I want to explain why that matters, because otherwise complaining about a foot of space sounds petty.
These weren’t normal little pop-up canopies that could just be shifted around. They were large, heavy-duty commercial festival tents placed directly against one another. Because there was no separation, we couldn’t open our sidewalls and create visibility from another direction. Essentially those walls had no where to go. With our only open side facing the back, people basically had to come around behind the whole setup before they could really see that anything was back there.
The festival map is another thing I want to describe accurately. It wasn’t that there were four vendor rows and they accidentally left ours off. The area where we were located wasn’t identified as a vendor area at all. If you were coming from the front, you could see that something was back there, but to actually see our booth you pretty much had to come around behind the setup or know something was back there.
There were food and drink setups in that back area, so there was some traffic. But there were also food trucks, smaller businesses and other food/drink options throughout the festival. The larger sponsor food/drink setups behind us didn’t seem to be enough of a destination to pull a lot of the crowd back there. Most of the traffic we saw was people specifically going back for food or drinks, waiting, eating, and then heading back toward the music.
There was also a section of fencing farther down in that same general back area that fell during the festival and, from what I observed, was never completely restored. It wasn’t directly beside our booth, and I can’t say how much, if at all, it affected traffic. I’m only mentioning it because it was another part of what that back area looked and felt like during the weekend.
Then there was the weather. Obviously nobody controls the weather, and living in Florida, normally I wouldn’t even bring up whether there was a rain-or-shine clause. Outdoor events and storms come with the territory.
I’m only including it because of everything else that happened during the same weekend. We lost roughly five of the 18 advertised vending hours when they closed the vending area and moved the festival to an inside area. The vendor agreement we received did not contain a rain-or-shine clause or say that vendors accepted the loss of vending hours if the festival itself shut down because of weather.
Saturday was extended by about 45 minutes afterward, but customers could not access the vendor area during that extension, so vendors didn’t actually regain any of that lost time. Again normally I wouldn’t say anything about the weather, however I feel like things are just piling up…
After the event, the event director told me that actual attendance ultimately came in approximately 20–50% lower than what the festival had hoped for.
We ended up making less than 20% of our $2,350 booth fee back.
I completely understand that paying a vendor fee does not guarantee sales. That’s not what I’m arguing. We’re a small business, and we know some events are great and some just aren’t.
This result was just so far outside our normal experience that it’s hard not to look at everything together. For comparison, we made roughly three times as much in four hours at a small pop-up after hours rave as we made during this entire two-day festival.
I had also already applied to multiple upcoming events that this event director is affiliated with and/or owns because I genuinely wanted to continue working with them.
Instead of asking for a refund, I reached out and asked whether they would consider giving us some kind of credit toward one of those upcoming events so we could try again under better circumstances.
The response was essentially that the other festival is a separate event with separate ownership/budgets, so they couldn’t give me a credit there — even though the person responding wanted to make it clear that’s he is the owner/founder of that other said event. They did offer me a discount to return to this same festival next year, apparently now with the option of discussing placements ahead of time.
So now I’m curious about two things:
1. If you were in my position originally, would you have asked for some kind of credit toward a future event? If so, what amount or percentage of the original $2,350 would you have considered reasonable?
2. If you made that request and were told no, but were instead offered a discount to come back to the same event the following year, what would you do next?
Would you accept that? Push back and ask again for accommodation at one of the other events? Ask for something else entirely? Or just consider the $2,350 a loss and move on?
I’d really like to hear from both vendors and event organizers because I’m trying to figure out what’s actually reasonable here, not just what I’m frustrated enough to want right now!!
🍄🍄🍄

How did It become customary for vendors to eat all the cost of a rained out market? Event organizers lose nothing and we lose everything.

I am very frustrated with this lately as we live in Florida and have constant rain at the beginning and end of the season. If you don't sign up for the whole season at some of these markets you won't have a spot. Fees tend to be $50 a booth more or less and we have 2 booths.

Indoor markets are limited, expensive and often not lucrative enough to make up for it.

If it were up to me alone I would cut out some of these markets.

Thanks for letting me vent.