# First Craft Show



## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

I attended my first craft show on Saturday. I've done farmers markets for the last 2 years so at least I'm not new to selling. The craft show was nice but I must say I was a bit disappointed with the amount of money I made. After the booth fee I brought home $200. With doing an all day event I thought I would do a little better than that. On a good farmers market day I can easily bring that much money home, and it's only half a day. I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of my market regulars came to the craft show just because they read I would be there in the paper. That made me feel really good. The day was by no means a waste though. The show was nice and I got exposure for the farm in an area I don't normally. I'll be doing another show this Saturday in a totally different area. I'm curious to see how the 2 shows compare.


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## winestonefarm (Oct 6, 2008)

i know the feeling, i did a holiday bazaar this weekend and didn't have to be there the whole time and made as much as when i spend a whole day at a festival. no canopy, 1/2 the soap, i was shocked!


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

Oh I hear you. I much prefer doing my farmers' markets. Our last two craft shows have been fantastic though! But we had a couple before that, that were so-so and another that was downright disappointing. But even at those shows I figure I'm getting exposure, advertising in an area where people don't know me or my soap and I'm giving out lots of samples. Every year I gain new regular customers from these shows and building a customer base.


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## debrad636 (Jul 17, 2008)

We did our 1st craft show a couple of weeks ago. Didn' sell as much as I was hoping to. I have to tell you that those people do not read signs. :sigh We heard two healthy women say that they don't need to stop at our table, all that fudge was fattening! I thought WHAT? :rofl This is Soap!. After that we started speaking to everyone that even glanced at us. Making sure that they new it was Goat Milk Soap.
Sold alot more.

Good Luck
Deb


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## icboers (Feb 1, 2009)

I set up last Friday at a Fall Festival that lasted 3 hours. I sold a ton of soap and lotion. After the $15 booth fee I brought home over $200. I was surprised since it only lasted 3 hours.

Karla


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

I guess it just goes to show you never know if you will do well or not. I'm just glad I have all my soap wrapped for the next show. I did SOOO much work to get ready for the first one I did.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I did a fairly large craft show last weekend and only sold about $120 worth of soaps and lotions. It was very dissapointing. I had a nice display, and some samples of soaps and lotions, everything attractively wrapped and much prettier than my soap swap soap! I did get exposure though, and handed out lots of business cards and met lots of people, and learned quite a bit about things I want to do in the future...which will not be until we get moved, after the new year. 

On the plus side, I did not unload my car that night and the next day I had to go trim horses in a neighboring county. I sold about $200 dollars to my horse clients without even trying!


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I have found that I do much better the second year I do a show. This is my third year doing shows and I can almost estimate how much I will sell. Nice feeling to have repeat customers run up and say how glad they are that I am there.


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## jimandpj (Mar 11, 2008)

LaNell - I completely agree that being there year after year makes a huge difference. Especially if there is anyone else with soap at the show. It takes a while to "break in" a new craft show - but it is definitely worth the time and effort if it is a show with a good crowd of people who are spending money.

PJ


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

adillenal said:


> I have found that I do much better the second year I do a show. This is my third year doing shows and I can almost estimate how much I will sell. Nice feeling to have repeat customers run up and say how glad they are that I am there.


Well after doing the second show, the results of my first show are looking much better to me. Obviously, my summer farmers market customers got me through the first show. While the second show was really well put together, I only made about half as much as the first one (after the booth fee is taken out). It was still an enjoyable day. My mom was able to spend the day with me and I got to visit with lots of folks. I'd like to do this show again next year. There was no re-sell at all and there was a good variety of really high quality handcrafted items there. It was really hard not to spend all my profits there! These first two shows had around 45 vendors present at each show. While at the second show I heard about another one that will be on the 5th. This show is much bigger. There are 100 different vendors signed up. I called the organizer yesterday and got in. The booth fee was a lot more but not too bad. I don't think I will have any problems making that back. I already have all the soap made and packaged so it won't take too much time to get ready for this show. Another thing that I like about this show is that it is much closer to my home. I only have to travel about 15 miles. I have a motivation to do these shows for more than just selling soap. I have a small farm store set up on my farm where I sell raw milk, pork, ground beef, poultry and eggs. I think these shows help spread the word that my farm is out there and is an option to buy good local food from.


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## jimandpj (Mar 11, 2008)

Just something to consider - getting into any show 3 days before it occurs is not a very good sign. Hopefully I'm wrong, and it was just because someone canceled last minute. But a general thing to consider when looking for shows, is that the harder it is to get in, the better you're going to do.  Of course, with this economy, a lot of crafters have stopped selling, b/c most shows are generally down. So in that respect, it is a good time to get into shows that previously may have taken a year or two to get into.

We have a show coming up that I couldn't get into last year. This year, not only was I able to get in, but I was able to get a double booth. While it's great that I'm in, and will now have a regular spot when the economy turns around, I've adjusted my expectations down b/c I got in so easily this year.

Another thing to consider, is that it usually takes a few years to work your way to a good location. So you need to keep the long term goals in mind. 

Heather - I think the advertising for your farm store will be great. Hope the show is awesome for you! 

PJ


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

All good advice PJ - we have found the same things - the longer it takes to get accepted to a festival the more likely you will do well. It also means the promoter is limiting the category instead of taking 20 soapers or whatever just to sell real estate. 
We were on the waiting list for our best festival for 3 years and it took someone in our own category dropping out to make room for us. I like this- it shows the organizers want a balanced product lineup which keeps the public coming. And the 3rd and 4th years we are at a festival we find that word of mouth has really increased interest in our work. Looking for long term goals is good advice and word of mouth for advertising is the best. 

Had to laugh about the no one reads signs comment- so true. We used to waste booth space with photos of our process and all the info on what you can do with our pottery and people would walk right past it and ask the questions answered there so we just trashed the posters and make ourselves little yakking machines.
Good luck with holiday festivals everyone!
Lee


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

PJ, that is definitely a good consideration. You're probably right. I'm looking at this season as more of a learning experience. I am totally new to this scene so I have no idea where the good shows are yet. I certainly won't ever find out if I never leave the farm though. I am trying hard to keep my farm goals in mind with this whole craft show scene. I will be limiting my shows to the ones that are only one day. I still have a farm to run so I can't be gone multiple days. I look at doing craft shows as advertising for the farm as well so I will only do shows that are within 30 miles of the farm. Luckily I live in an awesome location so there are a huge number of venues I can choose from. I think after I do this show, I won't be looking to do anymore (my DH gave me a "look" when I told him I was doing this show on Saturday). I'll be focusing on the farm until farmers market season starts in the spring. Eventually I would like to get to the point where I do not need to do any sort of shows or farmer's markets (unless I wanted to). The goal is to get a large enough customer base that they just come out to the farm to buy everything.


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

PJ....that's always been my thinking, until this year. I waited until 2 weeks before a big show to make my decision to go. There was still space open and I thought uh oh, not a good sign but I went ahead and signed up. Not all the spaces were sold, so much so that *all* the vendors got 1.5 times the space we paid for. I thought surely it was going to be a bomb and it turned out to be our 2nd best show. People were buying like I hadn't seen in a long time. I was just amazed and sold over a hundred bars of soap along with everything else we take. And I've gotten some repeat sales already. May have just been a fluke but I'll go back next year and see if we get the same results. You definitely don't know until you try. There are shows that I definitely won't try again and others may not have been good but other factors may have hindered sales so I'll given them another try. You just have to get out there and see what happens. And always think of it as advertising even if you don't sell a lot that day.


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## jimandpj (Mar 11, 2008)

Kathy - that's absolutely true - you can never tell what a show will bring for you until you do it personally. Doesn't matter what another vendor does, doesn't matter what another soaper does. Just how your product (and you) fits those particular customers. But, as a general rule, it's not a good sign for shows to have open spaces the week before the show. 

Heather - that's a great goal - it is ours as well. Shows are the most expensive ways of selling soap, because there are so many extra fees, and more importantly time, involved. But there is no better way to keep in touch with your customers and get extra advertising. I don't plan to ever give them up, but I'd sure like to do fewer of them than we did this year (over 50). 

PJ


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I agree that it is hard to get a good idea of how good a show is from other vendors due to the strange nature of shows. For example, I did a booming business last Fri and Sat at an Art Show while my neighbors to either side of me did very little. Why? Probably because one had lovely glassware (fired by them) but it was sitting flat on a table and was hard to see and the other had painted glassware and I am thinking that soap and lotion ships better than glass for gifts. Plus I sold a lot for individual use by the purchaser. I love this show because everything is handcrafted. Now they did have some booth spaces that were marked but not filled this year so I am guessing the economy cut down on the number of vendors signing up. I biught the rest of my Christmas gifts at this show so I am set to start packing up to ship.


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

Wow PJ, over 50 shows! That's a lot of setting up and tearing down. Hopefully I'll have some good results to share Saturday evening. 

Now the one farmer's market group I belong to is a whole different story. This group has a market on Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoon's. Their Saturday market is in the historic part of downtown Wichita. It's a huge market. They just added the Wednesday market a couple of years ago. When I joined the group this year I was not allowed to sell at the downtown market as there was already another soaper. That was fine for me last year. I just wanted to add a smaller afternoon market anyways. This year I'm debating whether or not to try and get into the downtown market. I already do a smaller Saturday market that has been really good to me, but a larger market and possibly much more money is enticing. This is a whole different thread though. :lol


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