hi guys i always get good advice on here so here is my next question. i have decided to hold my own little craft fair,i already have the venue sorted. does anybody eles run craft fairs? i guess am looking for some tips hints and advice. im going to start small and hopefully grow and organization, i am very excited about this x
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You need to do a vast amount of promoting the event which will take up a lot of time and energy.
You will also have to cover venue costs and work out have much space you have for vendours and access for customers and that includes wide enough aisles for mums with buggies and disabled people with walking frames/wheelchair access.
You’ll need to find your vendours and make sure they have the correct liability Insurance and are indeed going to sell handmade/craft supplies. That you don’t end up with one type of merchandise ie all Jewellery or knitted hats for example.
You might even find as the organsier you’ll be called upon to make sure the tolits are kept clean and stacked with loo paper. I know it’s sounds silly but I’ve been at venue’s where the owners of the centre that was hired for a Craft Fair simply handed over the keys to the organsizer and when the loo’s got used the organsier had to run to the local shop and buy loo paper to restock them lol.
Check if tables are part of the price of the venue or whether vendour will have to provide their own tables and what size is available or state the size of pitch to the vendour if the vendour has to supply their own table.
Think about where your venue will be. Remember the saying location, location, location. If it’s out of the way, hard to find, no good signage you’ll not get much footfall.
If you are used to organizing then you’ll be fine if not you’'ll end up pulling out your hair.
Hope some of this helps as I always had at least 2 other people with me when organizing our local Village Craft Fair. So we’d deligate who was doing what and it would mean starting the organizing months in advance.
All the best
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Kimberley,
You may not realise, but if you are the organiser of a craft fair/public event, or even a co-organiser, you become liable for everything from the health and safety of the public and stallholders, to probably becoming the responsible person for fire evacuation, to being legally responsible for the accessibility of the fair for disabled people, -and I don’t just mean wheelchair-users.
Check stallholder’s insurances as Eileen stated. Also, food hygiene certification if food is to be sold at the fair.
The more fairs you do, the more experience you will gain, and perhaps attract more stallholders, and look for other venues.
The EHRC has various free guidance online as regards accessibility and disabled access for small businesses and charities.
www.equalityhumanrights.com/publications/guidance-currently-being-updated
Ideally, you should get someone qualified to audit the location for suitability eg accessibility.
Most people probably don’t do this, but then are surprised when there is an issue with the landlord of the venue, or stallholders or the public.
I went to a craft fair not so long ago, where a popular stall was positioned so poorly, (by an experienced organizer too), that it formed a bottleneck of people and impeded the flow of people between the stalls. That impeded a disabled stallholder, so she couldn’t get to the loo at times !
Best of luck !
Ron
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