halfway through fall / holiday shows for 2012

This past weekend I vended at two different shows: one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Yep, this was pretty crazy. One of the funniest parts about it is how many vendors I met at both shows who also had two shows this weekend. I guess that I'm not the only crazy one.

This was my set up for Saturday. (The lady with the scarves behind my booth to the right was also in a neighboring booth on Sunday.) I'm getting my set up routine down pretty well. I'm usually scrambling to get things set up right until the customers show up, but I was ahead of schedule at both shows this weekend. That was a good feeling.

The guy behind me was selling hand carved spoons and other kitchen utensils. How cool is that? Some of my family members will be getting some of his items for Christmas.

This was definitely the better of the two shows. It was very well run and had some of the best traffic I've seen at a show in quite a while. There were lots of student helpers who did a great job all day, plus the school had lots of carts for vendors to use. For free. I've never seen anything quite like that before, and I can't even tell you what a big difference it made. I didn't have record breaking sales, but I did well enough that I would go back again next year.

Do you see the Packers pillows in the booth next to mine? I did some more Christmas shopping at this show.

Kind of like deja vu, right? It felt like it, too. This show was not as well run, but my bigger complaint was that it wasn't all handmade. I get really upset when there is a big Scentsy booth right near one of the entrances where people will drop $100 and then barely look at most of the handmade products available. I mean no offense to anyone reading this who sells those type of products, but the more shows that I do, the more than I loathe those type of products. It doesn't make me want to participate in these "mixed" shows as much.

The other frustrations:

I had a sale goal for all of my sales this fall, and I have not met it yet. Needless to say, that is a little discouraging. I came close with my Saturday show, but I really didn't with my other two. I still have three more shows, and you never know what will happen, especially as my last show is by far my biggest. If that show is really successful, it could more than make up for the lack of sales at other shows. But that hasn't happened yet so I hate to get my hopes too high.

I have observed a number of neighboring booths who have done well because they have done a lot of shows in the area over the past five years or more and get a lot of return customers. I've only lived here a year and a half so I'm just not at that point yet. Will I really make enough in subsequent years to justify returning to shows that weren't as profitable as I'd hoped the first time around? It's hard to know.

Some more good things:

I was really fortunate at both shows to have more really nice booth neighbors. That has been such a blessing at all of my shows thus far this fall. Even when sales were slow, the company was good. That makes it much easier to stay in a good mood.

Also, on the plus side, do you see how empty my ring rack is in that final picture? That was before the show even started. I have sold a number of those little guys this fall and will be making more before my next show. I am running low on a few other smaller items and will be working on those this week as well.

What's next?

• More rings and other small items. I wish that more higher end jewelry items were flying out of the booth, but at least something is selling. I have my work cut out for me with those projects this week.
• More show schedules. Another success from this weekend's shows is that a lot of people took my printed version of my 2012 shows. I need to get pictures of them. Hopefully they really are driving a little more traffic to some of these shows.
• Splitting up my magnet stocks. Since I started making glass and bottle cap magnets, I've filled a single magnet board with all of them. This means that I've been displaying less button magnets, which I think is a mistake, because they have always been a great show item. So I'm going to devote the board button magnets again and sell my other magnets in a separate display as you can see here. We'll see how that goes. In order to do this for the next show, I need to restock button magnets and make more magnet cards to accommodate all of my glass and bottle cap magnet stock.

I'm setting up for my next fall show on Friday. Needless to say, it's going to be a busy week. I'm hoping that if I can push through with these projects now, it'll mean less work before the final shows of the season.

How are your 2012 fall / holiday shows going thus far?

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weekend show wrap up

Before I get into the show details: I got a lot of comments yesterday about people wanting to see my Morton Salt Girl Halloween costume. I will be sure to get some pictures and share them!

I had my first fall craft fair this past weekend. I always plan to write a follow up post about my shows. Until the show is finished, it can be very hard to predict what I'll be discussing.

I know that people always enjoy seeing photos of displays. I have used a very similar display set up for my past few events and continue to be happy with it.

You can see more detailed photos of this set up here and here. This show took place in the indoor portion of a large soccer facility. You can see from the orange booth borders that we have large spaces. We also had ample aisles for customers. So the set up was pretty nice, but the customers just weren't there. We had a fair amount of browsers but very few buyers. I had my second worst sales record at an event to date.

This was a two day event. Needless to say, it was a big time commitment. Normally I would have left an event like this bitter and depressed about how little I sold. There were a couple reasons that this wasn't true this time.

1. This was my first of six fall/holiday shows for 2012. I'm confident that I'll be able to make up the money that I planned to make here at some of my other shows.
2. I had one of the best booth neighbors that I've ever had at a show. We really hit it off, and the show went amazingly quickly considering how few customers we had.

Aren't his products and displays great? It is extremely rare that I purchase anything from craft fairs where I vend. I am kind of cheap and am reluctant to part with the money that I just made. Also, I'm almost always at shows on my own and I've usually been so busy talking to customers, packaging items, and keeping my booth tidy that I haven't gotten to many other booths. But I had to get a couple things from him.

This guy is hilarious. His mustache and general expression reminds me of Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation.

I always enjoy it when Sharla and other people with pets have their pets model their newly acquired items. So I gave it a try. Angel is not big on sitting for the camera and thinks that 99% of people and cat toys are completely pointless so I was glad that she got up (kind of) from her Best Buy bag and checked this out for a few seconds when I had the camera ready.

Not only is this item a great concept, but it has a cartoon-y aspect that I love. For anyone else who grew up watching Looney Tunes and Wiley Coyote, I'm sure that you get that.

You can check out his Etsy shop right here.

While I definitely will not do this show again next year, it was still a great weekend. The mixed blessing of a slow show is that your inventory is still pretty good for the next show. I am going to keep pushing away on some best selling items and some holiday products, namely Christmas cards, but I'm already in great shape for my few November shows.

Did anyone else have a show this past weekend? Share your experiences.

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fall show prep

My first 2012 fall show is this coming weekend! If you live in the Milwaukee area, please consider attending. Information is right here. Here are just a few of the things that I've been doing this past week to get ready for it.

I've been saving Sprecher boxes ever since we moved to Milwaukee and started buying their root beer regularly because I got it into my head that they would make neat Milwaukee Christmas cards. I shared a preview back in May. I'm finally going through the bulk of my collection so I can get some sets finished for the holiday shows.

I'm putting together some new holiday earring sets as well as some other earring sets. The holiday sets did well last year so it's time to expand a little.

I keep working away at glass magnets. I'll have plenty for this first show, but I want to have a stash ready for the other holiday shows.

I still need to get a bunch of new items tagged.

In addition to the Christmas cards, I have a bunch of new all purpose "Just a Note" cards and seasonal thank you cards finished. I still need to put them in plastic sleeves and tag them.

What have you been working on lately? Does anyone else have a show this weekend?

getting ready for fall shows

Believe it or not, I haven't done any shows since December 2010.  Needless to say, there are a lot of things that I have not done to get ready for a show in months.  I've had plenty of time to get ready, but there has still been a lot to do.  I'm doing two shows this fall: October 15 and November 12.  The first one is right around the corner now so I thought I'd share a few things I've been working on for these fall shows.

My sign made it from Iowa.  A few of the letters needed a little repairing, but it will still be plenty functional for this year's shows.

I hadn't properly sorted or price tagged any of my new pieces in months.  It's much easier to set up for a show when all of my inventory is sorted by type/price.  (For anyone who thinks that this is a lot, I have 3 more containers with earrings plus a couple more with bracelets.)  I'm also planning to label the tops of the containers with descriptions.

Now that I have everything sorted, I've been going through one box at a time, pricing items that need tags.  I've used nylon threads to tie tags to bangles and pendants in the past, which has never worked well.  I'm hoping that the ribbons hold up better.  They certainly look better.

I keep a little photo album with pieces that have sold, including custom work.  It hasn't been a huge attraction at shows, but it does get some attention.  I like having it for my own posterity as well.  I have no idea when I last ordered photos, but clearly it had been a while.  Shutterfly sends out free 50 print coupons sometimes so I used one of my recent ones for new jewelry photos.

I'm adding a few new components to my displays, namely so that I can make them more vertical.  I feel like that's one thing that my booth has lacked in the past.  We'll see if it helps.  I'll be sure to take pictures so you can see everything come together.