r/CraftFairs

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.

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.

So I have a crochet business that I adore so much and a wonderful partner/long time friend by my side. I have to share creativity and some control because she helps finance the business. We have completely different tastes, I’m a Leo so I’m naturally bold and colorful and fun and a little edgy where she is very proper , by the book, almost vanilla. So when it comes to doing craft fairs she has ideas of projects that I don’t think will sell but when I come with ideas that might be new and a little taboo she often shuts them down or brushes me off.

So I guess the main question is , what are some recommended ideas of things people want to buy that are crocheted?

My daughter thinks things like blankets with horror characters or things to do with anime or crocheted peni* or weed nuggets or idk just anything fun just to apppeal to more people

Any advice ? Help im going crazy and probably described that terribly

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!

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.

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.

I recently applied to an event that is $150 for a 6ft table - it does include a helper badge, but it's for a single day event in a city that is around 45,000 and is not near any major cities. Is this normal? To me it seems really expensive as there are other weekend long events within a 2 hour drive that a under $150 for the entire three days. It's been a while since I've done convetion artist alley but this seems absurd to me.

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?

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.

This weekend I am going to have a vendor booth set up at an outdoor music festival and my mother, who will also be attending, has put me into an awkward situation.

My mother enjoys attending and supporting all of the events that I set up booths at, which is great. However, for this coming up event, she approached me just the other day with this massive haul of items that she bought from Temu... with the intention of me putting them up for sale at my booth.

These items are an array of light up headbands, Bracelets, wands, etc. Which are a great idea for a music festival, sure. But they are all horrible quality and more importantly, NOT HANDMADE BY ME.

For reference, I only sell handmade sewn, crocheted and embroidered items and my booth. So these light up items would totally look out of place (not to mention I would barely even have room for them). Additionally, they're obviously junky items from TEMU, that it would be so apparent to customers and other vendors, and it will most likely even deter people from my booth! (And I wouldn't even blame them).

Its not like I could easily just not put out the items. Because my mother will be attending the whole night and will most likely be hanging out by my booth for a great portion of that time. She already wasted over $100 on these items and is expecting some money back. So if I straight up told her no, she would have a serious problem with me. (I also have already made my stance on re-selling temu items VERY CLEAR to her beforehand when she mentioned the idea of it to me a few months ago).

I just feel so stumped. The event is this weekend and I have $100 worth of landfill-ready junk from temu that is going to absolutely ruin my booth if I put it out. Any advice on how to handle this situation would be MUCH appreciated.