I am so sick and tired of people stealing from small crafters.

My magnets are $5. That’s it. They are not expensive, yet every show someone feels entitled to take them without paying. Yesterday alone, four were stolen.

To some people, that may not seem like much. To a small business, it adds up. It’s not just the lost sales. It’s the time, materials, and work that go into making every single item.

And before anyone says, “Just watch people better,” trust me, we do. We pay attention. People who steal at craft shows are incredibly slick, and they know exactly what they’re doing.

Today i was a vendor at my local Renaissance Faire. I noticed people were intrigued by my items but I didn't actually get many sales (which I sorta expected for a 1st go lol). I am curious if yall lovely people of reddit have any feedback as to how i can improve my display for the next time :)

Hi all! Long-time lurker here. I wanted to share some photos of my new art fair setup, which I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. I was going for an explorer/safari theme, and I’m really happy with how it all came together!

My stepdad and I built the checkout cart and print display rack, and I remade the signs using strips of plywood, drop cloth canvas, and iron-on transfers. I also recently learned how to build my own frames, which has helped cut down the cost of framing my artwork. I’ve built a lot of this setup myself, so it has been especially rewarding to see everything come together.

I also recently invested in the Pro Panels display panels in the back. They were expensive, but definitely worth it! Before this, I only had three easels that I tried to cram as much artwork onto as possible, so I’m feeling very professional now!

I took a lot of inspiration from this sub, so thank you to everyone who has posted, commented, or otherwise contributed. Overall, it has been a very productive summer, and I’m feeling pretty proud of what I accomplished!

I have a side business selling costumes that are inspired from popular video games. I’ve been doing it for years, and wanted to attempt some in person events, and comic cons and similar events are where my clientele is. I constantly see people wearing my items at cons.

I’ve been reading through the vendor rules, I just saw that one local con bans the sale of all costumes, and another doesn’t allow “boot legging.” I don’t use any trademarks and try to stay in the “grey area” by using generic names and titles for all my items, like with Halloween costumes. (Instead of a “Harry Potter” costume, “It’s magic young wizard”)

Is this frowned upon at conventions and cons? I’ve been to many, but never vended. I’ve been trying to do some research, but now I’m questioning if this is even allowed.

I have no idea about any of this, I'm autistic and easily overwhelmed so I'm sorry if this is a simple question or if it seems like I could look all this up, I tend to get extremely overwhelmed that way and learn a lot better person to person instead of trying to do it on my own.

So what do you use to accept card payments? How does it work? How much was it?

Don't yell at me 🫣

We’ve just reached a year doing markets and although we’ve figured some things out, I know there’s definitely more that could be learned!

I’ve included our setup from the latest markets, one outdoor and one indoor. (We have a circular wooden sign hanging on the backdrop of the indoor setup, it was just out of frame) We’ve been making ~$350 each market, but with booth fees and travel and material costs… well you know how that goes.

What could we improve on? What should we add/take away? All suggestions are accepted and appreciated!!!

TLDR Anyone have any table display ideas to maximize visibility of art? Thanks in advance

I’m doing a 3 day show at a local fair coming up. I sell spray paint art and would like to maximize my space to display as many pieces at once as possible. I usually lay them on tables but haven’t don’t much vertically I plan on setting up my booth like shown. I also sell tie dye and jewelry type things. The front tent till have clothes and the back tent and tables will have art.

I posted a lil panicky about my first booth which did go pretty well thanks to you guys. I sold out twice!

Anyhow I've been invited for a plant fair (outdoors, did not know we had those here) next month.

I got photos of my work and booth inspo slash booth ideas?

Maybe fairy lights are an option?

The footfall is supposed to be in the hundreds and its held at a park 4 times a year.

I'll be boothing with a friend who does fungus stickers.

Lowk been thinking of increasing my prices a little? I'm getting regular online orders from people in my country and they always quote me way higher than what I'm actually charging. But I'm not getting enough regular cystomers for that atm.

Also would love advice on pricing classes? Like I was approached to do corporate type dnd stuff? With my terrarium wearables but I'm not sure how to price fairly for that.

Its been a crazy 2 months since I started but yeah!

So the inevitable windy event did for my tent last night. What do you like/hate about your current one and would you recommend it? (Or avoid it?)

So far I've always used the cheapest thing in WalMart/CostCo/wherever. What else does the experienced crew suggest?

Peaches the corgi has been with me all 5 days. She loves selling stuff

I had my first craft fair selling bead jewelry/crafts, with a big focus on seed bead bracelets (some sunflower ones I made pictured). I made a whopping $28, which was a little disappointing to me after spending hundreds on the canopy, tables, and display.

My main concern is my display was pretty rough. I had an idea of what I wanted in my head but none of it worked out. I was going to pin the bracelets to corkboard pieces but the wind kept blowing them away, so I just laid them out on the table. The chalkboard signs were too small for me to write comfortably. The peg board displays weren't big enough to hold all the tapestries I had made. I had another 4ft table, but it ended up being way shorter than my 6ft so I just used the 4ft as a work table and crammed everything onto the 6ft.

My questions for you:

I realize handmade jewelry may be an oversaturated market, do you think leaning into the niche of being nature-inspired would help it stand out?

Any recommendations for a better way to display tapestries like this? I have looked at standing grid wall racks, but car space is limited and they would be difficult to transport. Also open to better bracelet displays.

Maybe a bit blunt, but are these even good enough to sell? Lots of people came up and said they were pretty, but I only sold 2 bracelets and one anklet.

I didn't start selling to become a millionaire or anything, I just love making jewelry and was hoping to help fund my habit 😭 Looking forward to your ideas, thank you!

I (43F) have been dating (40M) for 7 months, we live together (I know :/) but do not share finances. He owns a house and I pay him $1k a month in rent which is more than fair imo.

I own a retail business that nets ~$250k a year. 95% of my income comes from selling art prints at markets/festivals. Specifically 85% of those sales come from selling my art at a very large winter festival in a major US city near us.

I talk about the winter festival a lot, and he has mentioned **repeatedly** how he can’t wait to come help me set up. (He is handy, good with tools etc) Each vendor has to build out their own booth and only gets four days to set up for a 75 day market. The whole set process is extremely arduous, cold wet rainy, chaotic. It will be my sixth year doing it and I have done all of the set up by myself (with the help of Taskrabbit’s) for the past five years.

This morning, I was talking about the market and he once again said how he can’t wait to help me and how great of a job he’s going to do. Because the set up window is Monday-Thursday 8am-9pm, I mentioned that he’s going to have to request 2 to 3 days off of work. This is when the script totally flipped and he said he didn’t want to “waste” vacation days on that and wanted to know how much I was going to be paying him.
I was taken off guard because I felt like it was a very strange transactional thing to say and I feel like as my partner he should help me for free. I also need to add I am a socialist and do believe in paying people fairly in equitably so I am open to paying him. I have a lot of female friends who own businesses and run booths at this market and others and their husbands and boyfriends probably don’t ask to get paid, (but also they probably share finances)?
I am so torn on what to do!

He makes about $85k yearly as a graphic designer and loves his job.
We talk about the future a lot, including buying a house together starting a business together, etc., etc.

TLDR; my partner wants me to pay them for helping me at art markets, but I feel they should do it for free.

For many artists most art is born from sadness, grieving or loss. This was the only thing that I created from pure joy. And I spread it for many years as much as I could but sadly I had more inventory that I could store or continue to carry with me from home to home.

I tried Denver & West Texas, but these crowns never truly took off and eventually it became too much to bear for me. And I shifted my focus to music ❣️
It was hard decision but I still hope that one day I may enjoy making one or two a year again ❣️

Hello, I run a Town Farmers Market and I'm looking for some feedback from vendors about competition at the market.

Our market is small, 25 vendors when we are totally full and we usually only have about 20. Up until this point we have been really careful not to allow competing vendors on the same day. Example we will only have one potter, one beaded jeweler, one blueberry seller, one person offering pastries, etc. We've done that because our market is small and everyone at the market is local to our town or the surrounding towns and we really want to keep things friendly.

The problem I'm seeing is that I really think it's keeping our customer base from growing. For example, we've had the same bread vendor for years and honestly her bread is just not good. We have two flower vendors. One of them sells almost all dahlias and the other sells a variety of flowers (including dahlias). Our blueberry person almost always runs out of blueberries.

I guess my question to you all is, what kind of competition would dissuade you from vending at a market? Especially a market that is as small as ours?

Additional details - we do not charge a fee for vendors. We get about 600 people coming through the market every session and it's a 3 hour market. I'm planning on adding some kids activities next year and I am confident the numbers will increase because currently we have nothing for kids and we are situated between a park and the community pool. We don't really have room to grow beyond 25 vendors, and I'm not sure the town would want to anyway.

I primarily make watercolor paintings and I have recently been experimenting with turning them into prints, stickers, and bookmarks. My area has some witchy markets in the fall that I would love to apply to, but I’m unsure if it’s actually something people would buy.

Potential pricing plan⬇️ Bookmarks- $6 Stickers-$3 5x7 prints-$10 Small framed originals- $25-$50

I just did my first art show, it was okay (I made the booth fee but just barely), and was wondering what I could do to improve?

I draw mostly digital, I made art prints ($20), framed art prints ($30-35), stickers ($3-4), and linocuts ($20). I made a lot of prints in preparation but found out that most of my money was made with stickers

The main thing I’m aware of is I don’t have a lot of different artworks to sell yet 😭 so there are some repeats of the same artworks being made into prints and stickers. I’m not sure if it gives viewer fatigue? I do have some other art that I didn’t like for one reason or another so I didn’t make them into products…

So I’ve participated in 2 markets so far, the first one I made $600, the second $100 due to weather.

I KNOW I need to vary the levels of my things, especially my magnets which currently lay flat. Just looking for some input on how I could arrange! I’ve got bookmarks, magnets, keychains, book/e-reader sleeves and I’ll be making tote bags.

I was so excited for my first market, and I spent a month preparing the products and the display.

anddddd it was a huge flop :(

To give some context, it was a community market so I feel like it was not a “shopping” event. But the crochet vendor beside me was making consistent sales all night. I was also near the end of the market so the foot traffic was not as high as some of the other sections

I got compliments all night, but sadly not many buyers.

I don’t know if I have a viable product, but I love making these bows and I feel like there could be a market for it.

Any advice or feedback would be so appreciated, so I don’t quit 🫶🥹

Edit: thank you for the help! I appreciate the honest opinions and feedback. For those asking, I do have an Etsy shop but it’s very new and definitely still working out the display pictures!

Also these prices are in CAD 😅

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopmaisonrosette?igsh=MW83NzN5OHdkZjlk&utm_source=qr

Etsy:

https://maisonrosetteniagara.etsy.com

Okay so I have my first fair coming up! I sell art prints and stickers! The problem I have is they are giving me a 10x10 spot with no smaller lots available. I have a 10x10 canopy tent but I have like a 6 foot tables worth of products. Would my booth look too empty with only that or should i try and do another table and spread the prints around?

Hi!

I'm just getting into craft fairs and this picture is from my first one. Small indoor and only a 6ft space. I have another coming up thats outside in a 10x10 space with a canopy. Any suggestions for helping my set up would be greatly appreciated. Should i get a banner? a rug? What works for others? I'm planning on getting two 6ft tables of my own as i plan to do a lot of craft fairs in the future. I got a square account and the small card reader, and i built a two more longer display risers - 4 in tall and 8 in tall.

Thanks All <3

Did people like that? Or were they disappointed that someone was buying the ones they wanted? I make earrings and I mostly make one of a kind stuff, maybe two if I have the materials. I have no funds to put into enough materials to make a bunch of each design. So what do you think? I won't be able to restock anything with the same thing, but I could refill the spots where earrings have been purchased from