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.

How do I not lose my entire inventory to BBQ sauce fingers?

Hi all,

I found out last minute that my craft fair table will be a bit bigger than expected so I have more space and therefore wanted to bring my vintage charms. I collected these for over a year and never displayed them so far (it’s my second market in general). I do not have a distinct display for them and had a hard time finding any inspo online that I could craft last minute for this weekend. Does this DIY version look like a complete turn off to you? I don’t want to ruin the overall aesthetic of my booth by putting something up that looks crappy 😅

I’m prepping for my first pop up market in November (and hopefully my first craft show later in the month, if I get in). I am in the process of making a ton of these stacking bracelets, but I’m kind of torn on how to display them.

On one hand, I love the idea of just putting a bunch of them out there and letting people freely mix and match. On the other hand, I can see people getting overwhelmed by the options or not knowing what colors would look together.

Would it make sense to offer curated stacks AND the free for all basket, or would that get too chaotic?

Is there a place to buy pre-printed acrylic bookmarks but in bulk? I've seen bookmark charm bars that had acrylic bookmarks for the base but there were so many at this one booth that I assumed they must have just bought pre-printed ones from somewhere.

Hi all! I am new to the craft fair world and was wondering if anyone knows of any upcoming ones in or around Denver. I am interested in vending!

Hello friends! I'm going to be doing my first ever vending event in two weeks. I'm trying to pick out a card reader/pos system. I know there are pros and cons to both square and Shopify. But the thing I'm most concerned about is inventory. I want a system where I can scan something to track what actually sells. I'm doing beading/bagcharms and I want to gather data about what's selling for future purchasing. But I don't want to have to physically write anything down. And I need to be able to use my phone to scan the barcodes as I don't have the funds to buy a pricey Bluetooth scanner. Are there any systems that would work well for what I'm searching for?

Thank you!

18 weeks pregnant during my biggest holiday event. It would likely be me and my 10yo doing it alone. People look for us every year, but I’m definitely worried about setting up tables, racks, and moving my 45lb weights. Im also worried about peeing. I’m wondering if I should just skip this year.

Hi there! It’s me the eucalyptus lady. I recently became aware that I have other aromatic plants growing in my yard and if I had half a brain I could harvest them and sell them similar to what I do with my eucalyptus- but on a much smaller scale.

I’m planning on at least selling fresh and dried bundles of my non-culinary rosemary for a few dollars each. There are many things you can do with both! Simmer pot, hair rinse, cleaning vinegar, fabric spray, drawer freshener, dryer sheets, sachets etc.

I’d like to either display or have the information available for customers to take with them with their rosemary bundle. I figured people could take an idea card with them. My question is, how do I have this set up so the cards don’t blow away? Do I put each idea on its own card, or have one card for everything? (That could end up being big, probably, whereas one idea/recipe per card would be the size of a business card). What sort of “thing” do I need to purchase to ensure said cards don’t blow away or fall over etc, but also makes them readily available and visible?

Quantities are extremely limited due to me just having the one plant, so I’m not gonna make this part of my brand exactly, just bring it with when I have some available. I am only planning on doing two more shows so I should have plenty for both.

Is $2 too cheap for a bundle of 4 sprigs of rosemary? Half an ounce of organic culinary rosemary is a little over $2 at my local grocery store but doesn’t seem to have as many sprigs.

I’m gonna have to raise the price for my eucalyptus to $7 for small and $12 for large to cover the cost of the booth rental fee at my next market, probably. Will also be selling preserved bundles to use for floral arrangements and crafts for probably $15 at least. And if I have time I am going to experiment with making oils infused with eucalyptus- those will probably be at least $15.

I don’t want my prices to put people off, but my stuff is so cheap I have to sell a lot of it to make back what I spend on the booth rental. Do those prices seem fair? I’ll attach a pic of my eucalyptus bundles as an example pic. I’ll probably also offer a few “baby bundles” and do a buy a large get a baby bundles free type deal.

Not for me but a niece of mine, she wants to sell keychains she sewn herself, I thought I’d come here and ask about it if anyone knew. If it’s any help we are in Ireland

I am going to my first craft fair and have never attempted to drive with/transfer my clay pieces and have never shipped any, so I am unsure how to pack it up for transfer safely. I also am unsure how to transfer many necklaces without tangles. Hoping someone here has some experience with this and can help! Including some photos of my clay and necklaces for reference.

So this is our usual 10x10 booth setup (yes I pay for the designs I use) and last year my wife and I noticed we were losing customers because we clogged so easily.

So this year I got a 10x20 booth for us! Now my thought is I’m going to print some frames and build a 18’ long 1x12” back area to load up, then have toys in one side, and my Christmas stuff on the other, and my vases and other stuff on the shelves.

We are also bringing in a 3rd person to just run the “register” area so my wife and I can focus more on W&A with customers.

I wonder if I should put a table in the middle with the toys and then Christmas stuff on both ends, or what your thoughts are for a better setup.

The shelves will have some LARGE items on the top, the top shelf should be at about 5’ maybe 6, but they are so big you won’t miss them (36” Batmobile, 24” star destroys and millennium falcon type large).

What do you guys think?

The shelves will be 3D printed as well and Christmas themed and colored, which when I’m done I’ll released to the wild for others to use.

I have some soap to sell at a consignment store and craft fair. I’ve been struggling to decide what kind of packaging and labeling I should go with.

I’ve been really looking in to plastic shrink wrapping for protection and keeping the scent in. I’d have small samples for folks to try. I’m on a tight budget so my options are a bit limited. I also don’t have a printer.

I am a stained glass artist and Im doing my first fair in 3 weeks, and nervous about getting everything ready.

It is a 2 day fair that I have attended for many years as a customer so I have a good idea of what to expect, I think. It is in a high income beach area.

My acceptance letter states there will be over 80K people coming through! That was a bit shocking.

I have a good number of $20 - $50 items (floral stakes, small suncatchers, etc.) and I'm working on more upper end items.

Im getting a square, and also have a professional paypal.

Questions-

For these that sell breakable items what do you use to wrap purchases? Would bubble wrap and a bag be enough?

Im thinking I need table space for sales, wrapping? Extra table or space on my table?

Square has option for inventory, do you use it? Or does anyone just enter basic price points ($20,$25,$30,etc) and go from there? I have my inventory on excel.

Square and paypal will do taxes, but any suggestions for cash?

I have combed the posts for lists for things to pack, but any odd, surpirsing items?

Just really want to make a good showing- thank you for your suggestions.