Trials and Tribulations of a Craft Fair

Craft fairs… “Noun a fair at which objects made by craftsmen are offered for sale” (WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/craft+fair?s=t)

So that is the ‘official’ definition of a craft fair, but ask any crafts person for the definition and you could get something like the following: “A place you frantically try and get a stall at, pay anything from £5-£30 for a stall, spend hours preparing items you hope people will buy, little sleep the night before worrying if you have everything/enough, if people will buy to cover your costs, a manic morning trying to fit everything into your car and then setting up a stall that looks appealing and not too overwhelming. A place where you then wait and wait some more, for people to arrive and look – and hopefully buy! – at your items”

Craft fairs are a great place to get people to see your products in the flesh, with some many people using the Internet as a source for sales it can mean that the personal side of crafting can disappear. However, a craft fair allows you to get out, meet people and show your products off with pride. Many crafters, including me, worry about craft fairs – will people come being a main one! There is nothing worse than all the preparation for a craft fair, sitting in a drafting hall full of other stallholders and waiting for people to arrive and no one does! Sitting and talking to other stallholders is nice, you can make some great contacts, but really we want to see you.

Then someone enters the hall… all the stallholders sit up straight, plaster smiles on their faces and hope that you come and look at their stall. If you are the lucky one then the stallholder faces a dilemma… after a smiley ‘hello!’ how much more do you speak to them? Do you try and force a sale or do you leave the person to look in peace? It is a difficult choice, you want to talk about your work as you are proud of it – we are almost like little kids coming home from school with that model they have made and want to show off! – but we do not want to scare you away! All the other stallholders are looking at you and your potential customer thinking ‘will they, wont they?’ and then when you walk away with nothing more than a smile and a nod everyone smiles in sympathy at you whilst you sit and wonder what is wrong with your products.

As stallholders, as well as sales obviously, we would love to be able to stand and talk about our products, so next time you see a craft fair please pop in and say ‘hi’, take the time to talk to stallholders, ask them about their products and ranges, take a business card and if you don’t buy anything – we are realistic, we do know times are hard at the moment – please bear us in mind for the future when you need a gift, a new blanket/cushion/glass/toiletries/card. Knowing that people appreciate our craft and have taken the time and effort to speak to use, find out more about our products and have been interested enough to take a card for future reference goes a long way to ease the stress of a craft fair!