My First Year of doing Vendor Events & What I've Learned

Hello witches & spooky babes! This is going to be a different post than my usual, where I will be exploring some key points of what I have learned from my first year of being a vendor at events!

This blog post is going to be a bullet list draft I wrote to help me film a YouTube video on this topic, which I will link below if you prefer to watch me discuss this. Otherwise you can read the bullets and get a good idea of what I discussed in the video :)

 

My first ever event table :) VS One of my most recent

Why did I decide to do craft shows?

• I started my online Etsy shop in 2023, but found it really hard to gain traction online and I wanted to try reaching customers in person. It’s hard to get product feedback when people aren’t seeing your stuff.
• Another reason was for my mental health. I have struggled with severe anxiety and panic attacks since I was 12, and don’t often get out of the house because of it. I wanted to try tackling my own anxiety and showing up for myself and my art by going to these shows.

My first shows:

• 2024 was my first official year doing vendor shows, though my very first time was at my friends shop in November 2023. She runs a cute spiritual art shop, and was running a Black Friday event, so that was where I did my first show. It was a fun laid back intro to vending, and I’m so grateful for that experience.
  
  
• After that I decided in 2024 I would begin doing markets regularly, aiming for at least one a month. Our first 2024 show of was an Aphrodite show, run by our local Vegan Expo, which was very small but again a nice introduction to vending.
   
• I got to learn more about the process of applying, getting your load-in load-out instructions. Sounds simple, but for my anxious self it was something that definitely had me uncertain. At this time I only had 3 different products, so set up was super quick and easy. I met some nice vendors there and got to talk to another witchy vendor who immediately gave me some recommendations for shows to apply to. 

Following your niche/audience:

• After that, we tried out a farm craft show, and this is where I realized that following your niche/audience is very important… we did TERRIBLE here. So many negative reactions to our witchy items… We only sold a couple items and definitely did not make our booth fee back.
  
  
• Going forward from there, I tried to be more selective and only apply to events that catered to a witchier crowd. Psychic fairs, Mystic Markets, Witching Hours, etc. These were much better and where I really began to learn who our audience was.
  
  
• If you don’t know who your audience is before doing shows that’s okay! You find your audience a lot easier by being at physical shows. Seeing which people are attracted to your booth, what ages, etc, helps figure out who your target audience is. It’s great if you have the budget to try out different shows in different parts of town, because each one reveals a little more than if you were to do the same type of show in the same area.

How to Find Shows to Apply to:

• Backing it up a bit, how do you find shows to apply to in the first place? To be honest, I’m still figuring this out myself, but a good place to start is google and Facebook. On Facebook you can usually find vendor show groups for your location, where other vendors will post or shows will advertise. You can also google, “___ shows near me,” and see what comes up. This part takes a lot of digging, and it really helps once you get to know some other vendors who can help by telling you events that they do. Also, if you follow some similar vendors from your area on Facebook or wherever, you can look and see if they have events listed on their page that they’ve signed up for.
  
  
• Overall, you’re gonna have to search hard, especially depending on your niche. If you’re simply a craft vendor, you’ll likely find a bunch of craft shows small and large, but a more niche vendor, you may need to dig a little harder and test out different keywords to bring up the kind of shows you’re looking for.
  
  
• Note: be aware of event scams! There are SO many scammers these days, and they’re usually not too hard to spot. Always double check an events website for their application or official contact info before you send anyone money. Many of these scammers will comment on facebook post pretending to be hosts, and just using a real events flyer. Find the official page or website for that event before you trust a random Facebook comment. Often official emails or applications will be linked directly on the Facebook event page. Also be wary if an application has no identifying information. Does it list the show name, the location, the time? If not, it may be a fake that a scammer is using as a guise for multiple “events.”
  
  
• Don’t feel discouraged if you aren’t accepted into every show you apply for. Keep searching and you’ll find some that are a better fit for you.

Customer Interactions:

• Like I said at the start of this video, part of why I wanted to d craft shows was to tackle my own anxieties. Luckily my husband was with me at all of these shows, so I didn’t have to be the only one interacting with customers, but I did work on at least giving a simple greeting to them. I actually came to realize I enjoyed talking to customers. There are a lot of nice people who love to chat about art or various crafting things, and I found that comforting even if they weren’t buying something.
   
• On the flip side, you do get some people who don’t have anything nice to say, Luckily I didn’t have anyone explicitly insult me or my work, but I could hear some snide remarks as people looked at my table.
   
• You’ll also get people taking pictures occasionally, and I don’t really know how I feel about that still. On one hand, they could be taking a picture for a friend or someone they think might like your stuff… on the other hand… copiers do exist. I decide to mostly ignore it when it happens, hoping that it’s nothing malicious. But it’s just something to be aware of.

Vendor Interactions:

• Networking with other vendors is one of the best parts of vending in my opinion. I love meeting and talking to other small business owners, and in my experience, most of them are eager to help you out and give you ideas of shows to apply for, or ways to work on your set up. They become work friends, a friendly face to recognize when you’re doing a show.
   
• Of course, there is always a flip side. We haven’t dealt with any overtly mean or disruptive vendors yet, but we did have a few instances where our vendor neighbors were totally careless about encroaching on our space.
  
  
• One event in particular, we were vending in narrow bar patio. This event specified that you could only bring one table, and no tents as it was a narrow patio and a large tent would take up most of the space. Well, one vendor did bring a tent, and three total tables, and set up right in the middle of the patio. We were in the back section with one other vendor, so this only left a small walkway to get to us. This would’ve been at least manageable, but when the sun started shining down, they decided to put up their tent wall, effectively blocking the view of us and the other vendor entirely.
   
• Now while I do think this vendor was careless to their table neighbors…all of which had one table and no tents… this does mainly come down to the event coordinator not enforcing the rules for the event. We did end up packing up and leaving early as no one could even see us past the tent wall. Needless to say, we didn’t make any money at this event. 

One more note about vendors: 

• One last important thing to keep in mind when interacting with other vendors or even coordinators is… these are NOT your friends. They may become friends over time, but right now, they are work associates. Do NOT talk shit with a vendor friend and think that you’re safe from that coming back to bite you in the ass. Many of these people have been working together for years, and will absolutely tell the other that you were talking shit. I have noticed that a lot of vendors I’ve met are friends with event coordinators, and if I would’ve aired my frustrations with them, it may have gotten me blocked from attending any of these events in the future. You never know who knows who, and whether another they’d hold a grudge. So just keep that in mind whenever chatting with any of these people.

Event Promotion: (& then organization)

This one is gonna be a hefty section, so I’m gonna break it down into 2 general sections: Event Promotion + Event Organization:

• That said, all events are not equal. You will begin to spot differences in event organization as you do events by different coordinators. Some events do a ton of advertising, fliers, ads, etc… whereas some post a few Facebook posts and call it a day.
  
  
• It’ll be hard to know which of these events are truly doing the behind the scenes work until you try going to them a few times, or just keep up with them on social media. To be honest, I think there’s a lot of coordinators with great intentions who just simply don’t know how to market their shows. I’m no expert either, but I do believe having more than one area for fliers is VERY important.
   
• Many event coordinators only seem to utilize Facebook and Facebook ads, and this misses SO many people. Think about how many people don’t see these ads because they aren’t on Facebook, or aren’t on enough to notice event ads. 
  
  
• Or, if the ad even makes it to the target audience. I for one have used Facebook a lot for years, and haven’t remembered seeing any of these events suggested to me in the past. It wasn’t until I went out of my way to find them that they began to show up in my feed.
  
  
• Unfortunately, this comes down to event coordinators having multiple forms of advertising, and we can’t really control that much as vendors. But you CAN do your best to advertise your attendance to these events. I have a specific page on my website specifically for listing my upcoming events, and I always put the one I will be attending next on my beacons landing page. You can share the Facebook event with friends, and invite anyone you thin may be interested. Remember that Facebook runs on an algorithm, so the more people interacting with the page, the more it’ll push it to more people.
   
• It would also be helpful to have fliers with you at events you attend. I didn’t do this this year, but I plan to in 2025. That upcoming events page I have; simply print that out and have it at your table for guests to grab so they know where to find you next.

Event Organization:

• Now onto the organization of the event itself. This is one of those things you’ll learn as you go again, and are mostly out of your control… but will give you a better idea of who to book with again.
  
  
• So event organization comes down to several things: one being how accessible vendor information is. Is the vendor information included with the application (I.e: what size table you’re allowed, what size booth, any booth measurements, do they provide you a table or do you have to bring your own, set up time-load out time.. etc). The bigger the event, the more I would expect there to be a more informative list. Why would you pay someone money to vend at their show and they can’t even tell you how much space you’re gonna have up-front?
   
• Then, there is the week of organization. Depending on the size of the event, there may be a lot of info in these emails the week of. Specifics about load in times, a vendor map with assigned spots, any parking information, etc. Now this is where you will have to try different events and see how you feel about the organization.
   
• I’ve done bigger events that did not include vendor assigned spots, and it was kind of chaotic. Everyone wants the “best” spot, and so you have a free for all loading in at once trying to claim those spots. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can get hectic the bigger the event is. It also sucks because theres no effort to space out similar vendors in these kind of free-for-alls… meaning you may end up with a neighbor selling very similar products.
  
  
• I personally prefer assigned spots. This tells me that an event coordinator took the time to go through the list of vendors, and space any similar ones apart so that they both have a better chance of getting customers.
   
• There’s also just a lot of other things, like properly measuring out spaces and marking them with tape, or having tables already there with numbers on them. Again, this all comes down to trial and error. I do feel the hosts who are more involved in the organization seem to care more about having a good event for the vendor, vs the host who are more lax don’t seem to.
  
  
• Now again, this also varies on size. Small pop-ups don’t need as much assignment imo, but the host(s) should be making sure people are being courteous and following the rules (remember the tent lady at the beginning of my video?).

Table Set Up:

• Now that we got through the event talk, let’s talk about actually vending at the event! First things first, you do not need a perfect table to get started. Please do not force yourself to buy a bunch of display items right away, and try to work with what you have OR go to a thrift store and see what you can repurpose there. Get creative.
  
  
• For this step, I highly recommend attending a few shows as a customer, and making note of what catches your eye. What do you notice as a shopper that makes shopping easier or more appealing to you? What makes it harder or less appealing? Obviously this is just your opinion, but it will give you a good base to get started with. For example: if you spot an item you like, but can’t see a price for it anywhere, do you ask the vendor or do you just leave it be? Many people don’t like to ask for prices, and want a clear sign or tag on the item that say what it will cost.
  
  
• One of the main agreed upon things in vendor groups is that your table is eye catching somehow. Good signage with your brand name or offers, so that people walking by can get an idea of what you have at a glance, or appealing colors. My booth is very colorful and I notice that it tends to draw a lot of attention, however this can also deter some people who prefer a “cleaner” look. It depends on what you’re selling and who your audience is again on whether or not you want to use this kind of display.
  
  
• Height matters!: maybe you noticed while you were doing your own browsing, but height tends to matter to shoppers. The more they have to look down to see an item, the less it’ll be noticed. If you can add height to your table, I would say go for it, but also try to be mindful about how tall people are. I am a taller individual, so I try to kind of crouch down a little when assembling my table to make sure shorter people will be able to reach things. Height also helps people see the items from afar, so they are more likely to notice what you’re selling and come towards your table. Again, these are things you can add to your table as you go, but something to keep in mind when buying new display pieces.
  
  
• Try different set ups!: I encourage you to play around with your set up, trying different arrangements and seeing which ones seem to work better. It’ll also help when you begin to learn what your bestsellers are, so you can make sure those are most visible. For example, I know my stickers do well at most shows, so I try to make them pretty visible from afar, whereas my notebooks are hit or miss, so I don’t try to make them as visible unless I have extra table space.
  
  
• One more note about table set up is simply about your checkout area: do you have a cash box? Do you have a fanny pack with your cash in it? Do you have QR codes for people to scan and pay you via Venmo/Paypal/CashApp? Do you have an area for your bags for customers? Don’t forget these seemingly small details. And don’t ever let your cash box/bag out of your sight.
  
  
• All in all, this is a very experimental part of the process, one that I’m still working on lol but I encourage you to have fun with it and don’t be afraid to shift things around DURING a show if you think it’ll help.

Costs? Taxes? Profits?

• Now… onto the costs of doing markets. I’m gonna keep this section shorter because it’s just too much for this video and I am definitely not a financial expert, but I did want to mention it since it is an important aspect of doing markets.
  
  
• There are different costs to consider when doing shows. 1. Booth fees. These can range literally from being very cheap to very expensive. However, more expensive does not guarantee a better show. Many factors go into a show being good, and booth fees are unfortunately a gamble most of the time. I’d say start with the smallest you can find, or do whatever your budget allows you to do. Most shows in my area start at $50, and just go up from there. I’ve had $100 booth fees where I didn’t make even half of that, and I’ve had $30 booth fees that I made over 5 times that. Trial and error on top of seasons, timing, weather, conflicting events, etc all can affect how well a show will do.
   
• The 2nd cost: Taxes. This all depends on your state laws, as I know some states don’t have sales taxes. In my state, we do, so I charge sales taxes on all card purchases. For cash purchases, I like many vendors will simply take the sales tax out of the cash afterward, taking a small loss, so I don’t have to deal with giving back change. Now… if you decide not to charge sales tax on cash, do not advertise that. Depending on your state, that is illegal, and can get you into trouble. So please, be smart. There may also be other taxes to consider, like small business taxes… but considering I’m not a financial expert and it depends on where you live, I’m not going to go into that. I recommend talking to some tax expert if you want more insight there.
  
  
• As for profit margins, I am the wrong person to ask as I mostly do this for fun and as a side hustle at the moment. I do plan to get my costs / profits more organized in 2025, and maybe I’ll have a video for that down the line, but at this point I am not very organized lol. I do have this sheet I made for shows that I print out for each one to keep track of things. It has a section for Before Show & After Show, where I can list all the cash in my cash box before the show and after to easily figure out my profit. There’s also an area for card payments + booth fees, so I can do some quick math with that. This does not factor in material cost or mileage, so those are some things to keep in mind if you want to be more organized than me.

Closing thoughts, 2025 goals:

• So that summarizes most of that I learnt in my first year of doing vendor shows, and I hope that was all informative to whoever sees this video, and that you have a great journey of doing vendor shows yourself ♡
   
• Overall, I’m very glad I decided to start doing shows, and even through the frustrations it was one of the best choices I’ve made for my business and my mental health so far. I look forward to continuing to break out of my anxious shell and putting myself out there, and overall having a good time at these events. Next year I think I will try to do at least 2 events a month, and maybe try to branch out to more craft shows again. I’m also considering looking for events further from my city, so that I can find new customers and see how things go. I hope to continue having a good time, and figuring out the direction I want to take my business, and generally being more committed to my creativity. And… getting more organized, especially when it comes to money.