Help! Craft show

Please help,

I have been offered a place at a craft fair for free and it is too good an opportunity to turn down but I feel so overwhelmed.

Where do I start?

What do I need?

Any advice?

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If its for free just go for it. I would take a selection of your work over various price bands. Have a trial run at setting up your stall in the allocated space at home and take photos so you don’t have to spend time thinking about it when you are there. Get all your items priced up in advance and write a little bit about yourself/how items are made/techniques you use on a card. Plenty of business cards - don’t forget a money float and take something to eat and drink. I always take a chair and something to do but very rarely use it.

Good luck and enjoy

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You’ve nothing to lose and lots to gain, even if you don’t sell anything people will be able to see your work and I’m sure you’ll stand out with your beautiful colourful artwork.
I would agree with the advice Roz @OrchardFelts has given above. If you don’t have time to get business cards printed then design and print your own flyers with a few details of where you sell and whether you do custom orders etc.

Good Luck xx

Check with the organisers whether or not you need to bring your own table and have insurance. Then things to take with you - lunch/ drink, packaging supplies (how are people going to get prints home safely?), note pad/ pen, float, business cards, table cloth, display stands appropriate for your items (a rack for cards to sit in and one of the magazine racks for prints maybe), plenty of stock across a range of price points, extra price labels (something always gets missed), possibly a helper in case you need to nip to the loo depends how long the craft fair is…
You might want to think about getting a credit card reader - these run via an app on your phone these days with no monthly charge just a % fee based on the amount of money processed and are very useful if you sell items at a higher price point. I have an iZettle one but you can also get a paypal or sumup version and most of the companies have a ‘lite’ version which they are giving away for free. (If you would like a refral code for izettle which gets us both money off our fees then let me know but please check that you are happy with the terms and that it will work with your phone).
Good luck

Thank you so much for the advice. I was thinking of drawing so that they can see me work. My partner will be helping me out. Terrified that I won’t sell anything

I have just enough time to get everything made I hope lol

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Thank you for all the advice. Gonna use it as a little tick list :slight_smile:

Look on it as a learning experience - if you don’t sell anything you haven’t lost anything but time and it may show you what to look for in the future - is it the right sort of event for you, was it well organised/advertised, what was the competition like and did your work fit in well etc. I’m convinced the more fairs you do the better your sales because you get to know what to look for in terms of fair organisation etc and also I think your confidence builds and you are more likely to interact with a customer and sell. I know at my first craft fair I was so terrified and under confident in my makes that I almost willed people not to look at my stall and when they did talk to me I had to stop myself trying to find fault with my items and convincing them not to buy them - I was terrified they would buy something and then get home and not like it! It does get easier :slight_smile: and at least you will have your husbands support.

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