Craft Fair Preparation
The day is finally here, tomorrow. I will be participating in my first craft fair. I signed up April 4th for the show on May 21st. That gave me just over 6 weeks to prepare for the show. I had no inventory and no idea what I was getting myself into. I did have some designs in mind, some wood at the ready, and a lot of drive to make this a success. Before I ran out in the shop and started building, I went to my friends Google and YouTube to see what I needed to do. Here is what I learned.
Set a Goal
The absolute first thing you should do is set a revenue goal. Having a goal in mind will tell you how much you need to bring to meet that goal. I set mine at $1,000. It was an arbitrary number up front, but it seemed like a good starting point since this is my first show. I knew at the time that the booth fee was $30 and I figured I’m going to have other costs I need to cover, but I doubted I would spend over $1,000 so that was my starting point. Then I read that a good rule of thumb is to bring 3 times your goal in inventory, which brings me to my second point.
Make a Plan
Having a starting target enabled my plan. I knew I needed to make 3x my goal, so I needed at least $3,000 in inventory for my booth. I started by listing out what I knew I could make with the wood I had. Charcuterie boards, cutting boards, coasters, cell phone stands, and board display easels. I then went to Etsy to see what these items go for and roughly estimated my prices to give me a ballpark number of how many of each item I would need. So I set my plan to make 8 charcuterie serving boards, 8 cutting boards, 4 sets of coasters, 18 cell phone stands, and 10 board easels. This gave me a rough target number and now I knew what I needed to start making, but this plan was not set in stone.
Ask for Advice
I made a few cutting boards, took some pictures, and asked my community what else I should make. I used my Reddit profile to ask the woodworking community for advice from experienced craft showers. I told coworkers about what I was doing and asked for ideas. I talked to family and friends and asked them if they had ideas. And all this resulted in an expansion of my offerings. I included picture frames, wood conditioner, business card holders, and even furniture. I built a small table, the Calvert End Table to be exact, specifically to bring to the show. It is small enough to be in my booth but a good display of my skills. I want to take custom orders at the show to build up a book of business and clients. I am bringing a photo book of everything I have made to show off what I can do.
Build
When I was preparing, I spent time thinking about what I would need. I ordered a table cloth, I printed business cards, I figured out pricing and packaging, but most of my time was spent on building. If you can, get help on the details, like how you’ll transport and setup for the show or how you’ll attach your price tags (everything must have a price tag). My wife helped out a ton where she could, but for my business the one thing that I no one can help me with is building. I had to put the hours in on evenings and weekends. I’d estimate over the last 6 weeks I have been working around 20 hours per week on top of my normal day job, and a large portion of that time was spent building. All that time resulted in a total of 82 items in my inventory. I said earlier I set my plan to build 3x my goal and I have nearly 4x. Hopefully that excess inventory results in excess sales!
A selection of what I made for the show. There are even more items packed up and ready to go.
Scrap Ideas Early
One thing I didn’t anticipate early on was the amount new ideas I would have. I had so many ideas that I needed to focus myself on the tasks at hand. I had to complete items to move them inside out of the dust zone so I could work on the next thing. I also had ideas I knew were good but I needed to put on the back burner to make if I had time. For example, I wanted to make picture frames and bring lots of examples so I could sell custom frames. I had a list of all different sizes in different species, but this idea didn’t come to me until halfway through my time and I already had so much stuff on my plate. Custom framing is expensive, so the idea was to show that I can make custom frames for a reasonable price. I have art my kids have made and I wanted to make frames for them to bring as examples and inspire customers to put in orders. I still think it is a great idea, but I ran out of time and only made 5 frames all the same size out of the same species. I did what I could and can still use those to accomplish my goal, but I had to prioritize the work I already had in progress instead of ping-ponging around between projects and not finishing any of them. The most important thing is to bring finished inventory. If it happens you have 80% cutting boards when you wanted more diversity then so be it, at least you have something to offer. If this is your first show then you’ll hopefully have some leftover cutting board inventory for the next one so you can focus on making different products next time.
Have Fun
I do this in my free time. I don’t do it because I have to, I do it because I want to. I like to build. I want to continue to grow my business so I can build more and bring joy to more people with handmade items. I had people tell me not to stress out about the show and I never did stress about it. Preparing for this show has been motivating. I can’t wait until 7:30pm when I can finally head out to the shop and make progress on my next item, even if that means sanding for three hours straight. Were all those late nights tiring, of course. There were times where I would finish at 10:00 not because I wanted to, but because I was too exhausted to continue. But I did it again the next night anyway because I find it rewarding.
So that’s it. Those are my tips for a successful craft show preparation. Time will tell if my craft show was a success. I’ll find out this weekend and post an update next week on how it went!
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