Doing a Local Craft Fair

Tomorrow morning I'm both managing (overseeing, setting up) and "doing" (selling at) a wee Craft Fair in our mobile home community's clubhouse. We'll only have 12 tables up, six-footers. It's indoors which is a plus for shoppers. I'll let you know in a day or so how it went. I know that our local area success or failure does not reflect your own area, but some things might interest you.

I did not manage to finish half of what I wanted to display. I also could not find a "hand" to put a fingerless glove on. When people see these gloves on a table, they look like "tubes" and they are not sure what to use them for. I ended up making my own by stuffing batting into a disposable household vinyl glove. Not bad. I'll try to post a photo on this.

Putting prices on is one thing I hate. This year, I used a lot of tags with string wherever I could do that. I used a crochet hook to pull the string through and then pulled the tag through the string. The self-stick tags almost always fall off of some materials like plastic canvas or crochet projects, so this went well.

Getting people to the Fair is the hardest part. I don't like putting signs on the poles on the street. Street drop-in's are usually people who see Craft Fair but think Yard Sale. They almost always want bargains, which would be fine if it were not a true Craft Fair with all brand new, handmade goods. I did place an ad in the Garage Sales part of our local paper. I made sure it said Holiday Craft Fair. I also placed one on Craigslist and on another local place similar to Craigslist. I managed to get a few local store managers to put a stack of 24 into their employee break rooms. I'm not sure how else to advertise a Craft Fair.

I am tired, but I hope tomorrow night I will feel it was all worth while.