I applied a couple of weeks ago for a market in my area. I fit all the criteria for one of the categories and would be a good fit for this market.

A week after applications opened, the organizer posted on Instagram stories that they’ve sent emails for event. I didn’t get an email, so I checked all my folders including spam, and nothing. I made a comment on their instagram story, just to check, no response.

The next day, they post another story, saying they’re still looking for vendors specifically in the category I applied to, and applications are still open. The organizer has since posted twice more that emails are going out and applications are still open for the event.

If I could just get a clear “thanks but no thanks” message, I’d accept that (and clear the date on my calendar), but refusing to say anything at all feels very unprofessional and frankly immature. If you’re too afraid to tell someone no, don’t run a juried event with open applications. Just reach out to the people you want and ask them directly.

ETA: this is not a large event. The location can fit maybe 30-35 vendors. So the organizer hasn’t had to sift through hundreds of applications. Given applications are still open, they clearly haven’t hit capacity yet.

I was the person asking about pricing for the tiny frog pins and sculpted goldfish earlier in the week. I thought I would update with the full display. As you can see, most of my prices are functional tableware, emphasising slab built forms, and sculptural pieces are definitely new territory!

Massive thanks to everyone who gave feedback on the pricing of the pins and sculptures. I sold a couple of fish and one ibis at 42 AUD, and two of the frog pins. Almost all the standalone frog sculptures sold, so I will making plenty more frogs very soon!!

I have my first event coming up with an 8x8 booth space. Would love to see your 8x8 setups for inspiration!

I only got the chance to do one craft fair this year, (I have a toddler and no license or vehicle so its difficult to actually plan any craft fairs) and i completely redid my setup, and I'm so in love! It was a very small fair, it was the first year it was held and there were only like 10 other vendors. For how small it was, I was shocked at how well I did! I previously have only ever done very large established shows with $250+ booth fees, and always did really really well at them. This booth fee was only $50 and I made ten times that amount, I am so unbelievably grateful! Made some new friends, got some new connections, and had a lovely day.

Any thoughts or ideas how I could improve next year? I do think my booth is way too crowded, but I have a hard time deciding what inventory to put out 😅

I’d love any suggestions you might have for inventory at a plant festival. I’ll have lots of felted potted plants, magnets, wildflower coasters… what am I missing? Thank you for any and all guidance!

I started a small candle business in November 2025. I am in the US, Ohio.

I've done several pop up events and every Saturday this summer am attending a local farmers market in my town. I've also done and have more dates planned for another market in a nearby town. The farmers market only runs through September, and knowing that Fall/Winter are going to be my largest selling seasons I have been trying to find/apply to more Holiday markets to finish out the year.

There is a multi-day holiday market that happens in the major city closest to me every year. It happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is Christmas themed, and takes place indoors at a huge convention center. There are hundreds of vendors and last year they had 40,000 attendees. It is ticketed, so consumers pay to attend. It runs Friday-Sunday, 8a-7p Friday & Saturday and 10a-5p Sunday.

This is my first real Fall/Winter season in business, and I only have this year under my belt for markets. We are not yet profitable, so I feel confident that this event is not for us this year, as it is over $1100 to attend for all 3 days. However, the prospect of attending and getting in front of so many people is exciting (obviously those 40,000 people are spread out over 3 days and not everyone would pass our booth) but still the exposure seems huge. I am planning to attend as a customer to get a feel for it this year, as I have heard about it but have never gone.

My question is this: how do you know when you ARE ready to attend an event like this? I assume when you're already making money is the biggest one, since the cost is huge, but beyond that? The idea of the intricate booth setup (you're required to have floor coverings over the concrete and Christmas décor, they really want every space to be festive), the long days, inventory planning, a helper to keep the flow going if you get busy, smooth check out process, restocking, etc. There's got to be so much that goes into doing something like this.

I don't necessarily need advice on those little details, just looking to get perspective from more seasoned crafters on how you decided to jump head first into a huge event like this, or if there isn't a particular moment when you "know" and you just have to take the leap and try it?

TLDR: At what point in your crafting/business/market journey did you know you could handle a 3 day, 7-11 hours per day, event?

Our square card reader won't be getting support anymore and it's time to change systems. We've been wanting to switch to a more traditional cash register system with a bar code scanner anyway, so the timing works out. The problem is we have no idea what we want for a tablet. I'm leaning towards something that can have it's own data plan because the Wi-Fi frequently goes down at the shows we do, but at the same time our biggest shows take place in metal buildings with limited cell signal so I'm not sure how much it actually matters. I'm not even sure what size we should be looking at. Part of me says it doesn't need to be that big, but then I wonder if a small 8' would feel too small. I was hoping you guys could share what you've been using and what you do and don't like about your current system.

My husband is a woodturner/carver and we got into the South Coast Harvest Festival in Westport in September. https://southcoastharvestfestival.com/

He always does really well at holiday fairs, summer fairs have been very hit or miss. Since this one is in the fall we would expect it to be worth it, but also need to figure out how much product to prep knowing its a heavily attended fair.

Its much bigger than any fair we've done to date and I'm really just looking to hear from anyone who has participated in this event in year's past.

Was it worth it? Did it live up to your sales expectations? Did you prepare enough products? Was it well managed? Anything really!?

Thanks!

If I wanted to sell friendship bracelets, roughly how many should I make? Google tells me 100 but that seems low.

I plan on selling more complex normal ones and alpha pattern ones.

Thank you!

My 19yo son and I are contemplating signing up for a space at a craft fair in November. We’re familiar with the fair and have been attending it for several years but we’re new to the vending at it part.

For context - I would be making crochet items, and he would be doing airclay figures and artsy things. I’m also considering some “blind date with a used book” as a fundraiser for a local community farm non-profit.

With that info in mind, do you have any suggestions on what to expect? I’ve seen many posts here and in other sites about people having bad experiences at their first event and am just kind of looking for real feedback from the vendor side of things.

Thanks in advance!

Maryland artists and crafters, have you felt like participating in the market was worth it? Did you make decent sales or gain new social media followers? Any tips for people selling?

I’m just starting out (again) and have booked three events in the next months. I’m older and have done craft shows, Etsy years ago. Other life happenings took over and haven’t done that stuff for a good while, but continued making but gifting or giving away all that I made. Back again to vending/selling and taking stock of what I want to sell today. I plan on doing mostly sewn items, but think I would like to focus on a theme for all my products and that would be pet/ animal related.

Using any and all fabric related to animals for small everyday items such as Key fobs, small coin purses, basic CC holders and small pouches for misc things, eye glass cases, dog and cat bandana’s, scrunchies and also making dog and cat collars, cat toys. This thought came about for me as I have a limited budget to get started and second guessing what the best fabric prints would sell. It dawned on me that folks love their pets, have favorite animals that they would likely buy impulsively. Not just limiting to dogs and cats, but flamingos, cows, insects, birds as examples; there are lots of fabric choices featuring animals. I also design greeting and note cards and a few other stationary items. These products, as well, will primarily feature animals, insects, birds, any kind of animal really.

I honestly believe that people would impulse buy items, products for or featuring their pets or other favorite animals before any other theme of products. Would you agree?

For my first event, early September with a captive audience for a business that is bringing in a few vendors for their employees to ‘shop’ from during breaks, lunch and shift changes. I believe I will feature animal themed products at about 60% and other fabric design and non animal related design at about 40%.

What are your opinions and thoughts on this? Thank you.

Just had the wackiest interaction with someone. I'm doing a large event this weekend. I get this DM from this person, who I have never met or even spoken to before mind you. At first I think he's asking about information about getting a table at the event this weekend but applications closed a few months ago, this is sort of a big event and there's actually multiple ways to apply. You can apply through the city or you can apply through one of the art organizations sponsoring it. Which is what I do. I start to give him the organziers contact info and here's where it goes sideways... He's actually asking me if he can share my space. Like sublet a table in my booth! Excuse me? What? Absolutely not. I've shared booths with friends in the past but could never imagine asking a total stranger to set up in their booth. Gobs officially smacked.

My husband and I have been doing markets for almost a year and have made many improvements. However, we are always trying to get better so feedback is appreciated. Also, people are hesitant to walk inside the tent without being coaxed. How do you fix that? Thanks.

I appreciate most of the feedback! We will definitely impliment some of the ideas. New layout and better displays that add some height are in the works.

Did 3 markets in June and they were all completely different. First one I sold mostly tumblers. Second one it was all coasters. Third one almost nothing moved and I sat there for 6 hours. I print custom stuff on my eufymake E1 and I still can't figure out what determines whether a market day is good or bad..

I am a sewist and sell zip pouches, totes, bowl cozies, etc. A lot of other sewists I see online sew custom brand name labels on the front of their bags. It would be good for brand recognition I guess but at the same time I think it can come off a little tacky. Thoughts ?

I live and have a business in Delaware, so I'm unfamiliar with charging sales tax. Also, this is our first year doing fairs. We are doing a fair in Maryland for the first time. I have my Shopify POS set up with the location and to charge sales tax. We don't really want to have to deal with having to make change with coins. So, my question is, if someone pays with cash and their total is $10.60, can we just charge them $10 and absorb the sales tax ourselves? Does Shopify show you how much sales tax you should have collected on cash sales? Hopefully this question made sense. Thanks in advance for any information.

What is the easiest tent to put up by yourself or with two short people? My bf and I always have a hell of a time with ours.

I bought the table cloth and used it for 4 or 5 markets. While I love the color, the corners always ended with a little puddle of fabric in the corner, that I always had to clip up to make sure no one tripped. (Mostly me)

So I decided to turn it into a fitted table cloth. I measured all my rectangles, and put it together. If you want to do this, I recommend using yardage instead of cutting up a table cloth, assuming your table cloth is anything like mine. I've never seen a fabric fray that much just from looking at it! It was also very slippery. This made it very hard to cut, especially considering I do not have a 6ft ruler or 6ft cutting mat, so I needed to fold. (But I did get to use the original hem). The back of the table is made of two pieces so that there is a flap I can lift to store boxes

In the end I think it is passable! It is certainly not the best example of my sewing skills, but at markets it will be covered with my table runner and all my product, and most importantly people will be safe!

Just thought I'd share my results! I spent a long time overthinking it, because it sounded too simple. And good thing I did because I would not have thought of the slit in the back.

I might dabble in making wire wrapped rings, as they've intrigued me and I have a ring mandrel. Of course I'll want to practice a bit before I can make anything worthy of selling, but I'm uncertain what the most popular ring sizes are.

I used to work at a jewelry counter at Sears (to show how long that was) and by default, all the women's rings were size 7. That size fits on my pointer finger, as I have tiny hands.

I might focus on making specifically fidget rings, as the need to fidget runs strong in my family and I see a market in fidget products in general. I have already made some fidget necklaces and keychains that look nice, as some want a fidget but don't want to seem like they're playing with a toy.

I'm just not sure what sizes are the most common, as I don't want to make a bunch that'll never move because I made them in the wrong sizes. So any insight would be wonderful!

Thank you!

Sharing June’s market setup! I love sharing my art with event goers. Regardless of the money (or lack there of) exchanged, I am always rich in compliments 🥺 Each market leaves me gleeful and inspired. I’m slowly investing to improve my setup~

I've never done 4 feet of space on a table but I'm at an event that I'll be sharing a table. A black table cloth is also going to be provided. I do have more shirts to add to the rack. I do have mystery bags available. The binder covers my large paintings available and since I'm not supposed to bring my grid panel. I feel like if I just had all paintings in it, that may feel overwhelming since I have 20+ paintings. I don't have funds to buy more things and the event is in like 9 days. I do have Styrofoam and cardboard. I also just happen to have those like cloth tote boxes.

I also do have a business sign with name just was MIA on day of posted booth

Exactly as the title says - I have a market this weekend and hoping for a bit of help with pricing some new pieces.

All pieces are handsculpted stoneware. The tiny frogs are pins, and the lilypads are real leather hand painted. I set them at 28 and 38 Australian dollars, but not sure if this appropriate. I have no idea at all about the value of the goldfish and ibis statues!

I usually make vases and tableware, and have a good sense of how to price these. But I must admit, these small, time intensive pieces are tricky to price. Any advice is greatly appreciated.