I’d never done that before. Another notch in the belt. The Laird had his first booth at a craft fair on Saturday. I dressed in his clothing and stood around looking pretty.
“Was it successful?” is a difficult question to answer because it depends mightily upon how one defines “success”. Was it profitable? No. It paid for the two of us to setup, teardown, and be in the booth for six hours (2x7x$20=$280), but not much more. Was it valuable? Definitely.
The problem with pricing “craft” items is that no one understands how long it takes or the value of time. For example, the sweater I wore is (in my opinion) one of the best pieces The Laird has made. It’s completely unsellable. At a reasonable labor rate, it would cost $1000. No one is going to pay that for a sweater. A materials-plus price of $500 might work – and I did mention to few people that if they really liked it, they could buy it off my back for that. There were no takers.
Capital is also an issue. You would not believe the number of crochet hooks floating around this house. They’re not free and, unlike yarn, are not dedicated to a particular item. What else does one need? Sewing machine (w/regular maintenance), cash box, something to hang items on, something to transport the items, hangers, clips, pens, business cards, signs (at least one), table cloth, (possibly table, but they supplied one), pop-up for outdoors, etc… All of that must be covered by the price of an item – in addition to labor and material. This is why I felt $5,000 to do the yard was totally reasonable. It was definitely not $5,000 in labor, but only because they had very expensive tools, which I do not have, to reduce the labor.
That is the main issue that all crafting people face. It works as a “my labor is free” hobby, but it is very difficult to turn into a business because people just won’t pay for it. Bread is a good example. I costed mine at $1.11 a loaf. The booth across from us was selling sourdough at $10 a loaf (subtract 3% for card processing: $9.71; subtract 6.21% for sales tax: $9.14). That’s $8/hour for labor, at best. That’s not a living wage. That’s a hobby. There is nothing wrong with that, but one needs to go into it knowing that, which we did. Which is why I don’t see “profitable” as part of “successful”.
If money is not in the success criteria, what is? Experience. This was our first rodeo. Neither of us had ever set up nor torn down a booth. I had never worked a cash box/register. The Square card account had never been used. We had never lugged inventory around. Etc..
It all went very smoothly. A special “thank you” to Kim for enabling that with both equipment and advice.
The cash drawer did come up $1 short. I accept the blame for that because, despite knowing better, I did not count “my” drawer before starting. I made the unpardonable (really) mistake of trusting The Laird’s count. Considering that I only returned $5 bills in exchange for $20s, I did not count the change wrong. It was definitely a drawer counting issue. ALWAYS count your own drawer – even I know that; I just didn’t do it.
I’m excited for the next one. It will be much less stressful!
Marked Up 
Crafting isn’t retail. Selling glass isn’t either. Ignore the production costs. I ignore my storage costs. You missed transportation costs which I also ignore.
Instead of “looking pretty,” I’d advise wandering about, studying other booths – similar or not and increasing traffic flow past shirt. Make friends with other vendors. “I’m new to this, any ideas?”
Some items require (especially those that are more costly) 3 or 4 contacts. You might have to “do” 3 casts in water (3 shows) before you get a bite. Ill bet there’s regulars who go to craft shows as THEIR hobby. “Jennifer, I saw a shirt that you’d love, I hope those guy are at the next show.”
Remember that your shirt got inquiry on 3rd day on cruise ship. What sort of reaction would you have gotten if you’d said “I make them in custom colors. Here’s my card.” Mine says “By shows and appointment only”. You can’t wander, pushing cards – you didn’t pay for “aisle space.” Show dates are on back and don’t miss any.
Background is photo of you looking pretty. Only Company name, email address, instead of phone, name,etc. Your card says something about sizes. Duplication of existing shirts available.
I think you missed a HUGE chance here by not showing a picture or two on this blog. (And on the cruise blog but that ship has sailed – pun intended.)
Why are there 2 cash boxes? Oops. Sorry. I forgot you’re 2 hours difference from 6:30 here 4:30 there.
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Good to hear from you! We both wandered around in analytical mode, especially since this was our first. Two things that I noticed:
The readership of this blog is miniscule, so I’ll give you “missed chance”, but not “HUGE missed chance”. That said, WordPress really loves its “featured image” so I updated this with one from the cruise in the same sweater.
I’m terrible at going around meeting people then doing something about it. I can be a social butterfly (as you well know), but extending that to “networking” is super painful. The Laird can do that part.
I like the business card advice. Those need work. He has printed background on both sides, which makes writing anything on them difficult and reading it later even worse.
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