My Sista-in-Craft, Heather of Rinse Bath & Body recently talked about her love and addiction for sales events, and explained to all of you that doing fairs is one of the cornerstones of her business.

In making the decision to functionally change our “hobby into a business” (dun-dun-DUN!), my sister and I basically chose the same route…. Instead of using more traditional avenues to raise capital for our business (small business loans, borrowing from family, etc.), we chose to instead fund our business through the venue of juried arts and crafts fairs.  Now, for most of you who have attended these well-known fairs year-after-year (in Atlanta, these may include the Atlanta Arts Festival, the Dogwood Festival, among others), it is easy over time to recognize many of the same vendors' faces and products, year-after-year.  
 

Being the fresh-faced newbies that we were, Mari (my sis) and I enthusiastically strategized our game-plan for the year, carefully choosing the festivals we believed were going to bring in the most money for our business, would fit our customer’s demographic (which we were still figuring out at this time), and have the most foot-traffic.  We forged out a timeline for applying to shows, most of which had deadlines 4-6 months prior to the show’s start, and created an Excel spreadsheet and filing system to make sure we didn’t miss a beat.

We found that the shows that serviced our main demographic could only be applied for on sites like Zapp and Crafts America Shows.  So, having no capital for our business, we plunked down $35 - $50 application fees associated with all of the shows.  

In our naïveté, we dived right into applying for only the biggest and the best high-end juried fairs in the county.  We knew by sight that our product was superior than some of those we saw in our beading category at these festivals, and knew that our youth (we were always some of the youngest at our festivals), vitality, and indie-sensibility would carry us through.

Then, the unimaginable started to happen: We saw our first “Not Invited”…. The words became blazed in black letters on the screen, and seared into our brains for an eternity. Then more started coming in.  And more after that.  We were confused.  We didn’t understand.  We did EVERYTHING we were supposed to do in this process, and STILL didn’t get chosen as one of the lucky few. 

For several months thereafter, we continued through this process, trying for shows that could only be applied for on these systems that we believed were set up to help the artist, and not only take their money.  Eventually, I began to reach out to my fellow artists, hoping at least one could offer some advice in regard to what route we should take. 

Finally, I found one insider who was willing to share.  She informed me that the reason why we don’t see many new faces at these festivals is because of the following scenario:  The festival will announce that 200 places are available.  This same festival has an ongoing policy to automatically accept the applications of vendors who previously participated in the fair.  Because the festival automatically accepts all previously invited vendors, there are realistically only 20 SPACES AVAILABLE, ACROSS ALL CATEGORIES.  Thinking 200 spaces are available, all other artists then each pay $30 - $50 to through the system, when there had always been less than a 10% chance that they’ll be selected in their category.  All-in-all, it’s a huge money-maker for the people who run the system.

After learning this information, and having spent over $400 in application fees on Zapp, we began to look intrinsically to see what we’d done wrong, and explore other more traditional avenues of getting our wares out in to the marketplace.  As we continued to insert ourselves further-and-further into the world of Arts and Crafts, we learned from our fellow Artists that many good juried and non-juried, income-producing shows could be found and applied for traditionally.  We stopped applying via online altogether, and found that we had much greater success in applying for smaller-to-medium size fairs the good ol’ snail-mail way. 

We spruced up our booth (which was initially a sad, sad display), bought a better camera in an attempt to take professional photos to submit to the fairs, and began to write and type out applications to send in.  Two months later, we got our first YES to a juried competition, and all of the fun began. 

  
Old Booth Photo                                              Current Booth Setup

Like Heather, a portion of our yearly intake comes from doing fairs, and we have also had great success gaining/retaining retail and wholesale relationships simply by sitting in our booth and selling our product.  If you have the time, it is worth it to increase and establish your brand through all three avenues: Fairs, Retail and Wholesale.

My short-list of tips to all of you who are starting on the circuit is the following:

1. Make sure you carefully organize what fairs/festivals you’re going to attend by creating a filing system so you don’t miss your application date
2. Apply earlier in the application period, rather than at the end.  Many small-to-medium fairs “jury” as the apps come in, and you don’t want your category to be filled by the time you apply.
3. Spruce up your booth photo.  Look at others online and at fairs, and become inspired by their setups.  Change yours in a way that tastefully displays your product and allows you to interact with the customer
4. If applying to high-level juried fairs, get professional photos taken of your product, or get photo-editing programs to properly edit your product for evaluation (i.e., PhotoShop)
5. Get used to rejection, and put the fair back in the rotation list for next year.  Go to the fair, see what you may have done wrong, and if it suits you, try again.
6. Properly prepare for your fair with an over-abundance of inventory, be on time to set up, and don’t leave early.  You want to sustain a long-lasting relationship with the show promoters, and the only way to do that is to make a good impression.
7. Finally, be sure to apply for shows that you may not think necessarily fit your customer-base.  Although me and my sister have a ”DIY-State-of-Mind,” we never thought of applying to smaller, indie-fairs until this year because our product speaks to a different customer.  We’ve had an enormous amount of success servicing that customer-base, as well, and will continue to do so.

Although this list is certainly not comprehensive, it is a good guideline of what you need to do to get started.  Once you do, and you open that first “YES” packet, sky’s the limit.

Until next time, Creative People…..