Survived my first craft fair recently and, boy, did I learn a lot. A huge thank you to my hubby for being there with his heavy lifting and moral support - before, during and after the actual event. My BF Mandy showed up twice to help with set up, midday support and homemade snacks. Friends, family, neighbors and collegues stopped by. I was feeling the love!

Lessons learned?

There is waaaaay more work than meets the eye to pull this off. It took me two days to recover.
Setting up my booth in our empty spare room 2 weeks out was key - there's no way we could have created what we did without the dry-run and blueprint that time and space afforded me. However, I hadn't anticipated what 25+mph winds would do to my display! So glad I invested in the heavy-duty sandbag weights for my tent.
It's not all about sales (for now) - just completing my first fair was the goal; that said, I didn't sell much. The few vendors I had a moment to check in with were having mixed results. My guess is that because this was a first-time event, the crowd was going to be iffy anyway. The seasoned craft fair vets told me not to base any decisions off my first time out (at a first-time fair).
It is about finding the right niche. Not sure the indie craft scene is mine, but we'll see. I hope to get into a couple more juried fairs this fall, one (Art on the Avenue) of which might be a better fit.
AND...I'm thrilled that this fair got me exposed to the women behind ArtSpring, the reincarnation of the Pyramid Atlantic Store that opens this July in Silver Spring. We met, they took a bunch of my work to sell in their store, and I'm excited to work with their merchandising manager on a creative store display that's inspired by my booth.

artspring opens soon

handmade mart a success by any measure