Music and Crafts Festivals

As part of our “Sell Your Own Crafts” business series we will be including a frank discussion on being vendors at local crafts and music festivals in the North Florida region. Now, this is by no means an absolute findings are attending these events in this area of Florida for all craft vendors. Of course, you will experience something different depending on the types of crafts you are selling, your booth setup and your pricing strategies. There are lots of different articles available for you to read on the web on all three of these and until you get out there are start comparing them yourself you are really not going to know if you can make any money at this or not.

As with any venture there are going to be challenges, upsets, delays, and problems for you to deal with. Knowing that going in and making up your mind to work through them and not stress about things that haven’t happened yet are a couple of the things that will see you through the first couple craft vendor events. Our biggest hurtle has always been trying to come up with a display that we liked, in an arrangement that we could work with and still be comfortable for the 6 to 10 hours a day that you are going to be in that little 10×10 area. Each year we have to buy more display items, different table cloths, more comfortable chairs, tent leg weights or even just a new tent. This year we bought a water “resistant” pink tent with pink sidewalls to really stand out in a sea of white tents. We did purchase weight bags for our new tent but they didn’t come with the “weight” part so I compromised with sand. Not bad but kinds of messy when the bags fall over. There were a number of items we had to purchase extra for the Olustee Festival that we didn’t need for the Infinity Con as we were invited to stay open after dark on the first day during the concert.

Both these events allowed the vendors to come the night or day before to set up. Ask almost every single vendor and they will tell you that to really do a good job and not wear yourself out you need to participate in events that allow you to set up the day before. I don’t know why it is but it takes a good 4 to 6 hours to set up a tent, tables, displays and merchandise where it only takes about an hour to break it all down and rebox your inventory. NO MATTER WHAT THEY INSTRUCTIONS SAY it always takes 2 strong people to put up one of those canvas tents so bring plenty of helpers. And street events usually require you wait until the police have blocked off the area. Some even insist that you park somewhere else and tote your vendor stuff into the area. For that, you need a really good dolly type device. (That’s another expense we were not counting on.) And finally, get plenty of sleep the night before your first day. A good long hot shower would be within the realm of possibilities after having done all the setup prior too.

For both days of the Olustee Festival there was a good breeze, lots of people walking around and through our tent (For some reason the event coordinator had the tents setup in the middle of the street with people moving in, out and around all of the tents), great music and lots of food. The tents were put in side-by-side which turned out to be a plus when the winds kicked up in the late afternoon. Since we applied fairly early we got a really good placement between the food trucks and the music events area right next to the park. The best thing (for me, at least) was that our northern neighbor was a new coffee brewing company that was giving away free samples of their special blends as well as selling the beans either whole or freshly ground. Yummy!

Now for the comparisons of Costs versus Revenue

Some of the extra items we had to purchase to get ready for this event:

Paypal CC Device and Marketing Stickers $69.74
Lightning Jack SquareUp CC Device $10.70
Jewelry Display and Tent Supplies for Shows $177.92
Vendor Chairs $49.92
Wooden Crates for Craft Shows $174.38
4ft Table, Cloth, Drawers, Necktie Holder $81.06
Yarn, Earring Backing and Storage Bags $44.26
Pricing Labels and StandUp Mirror $33.49
Outdoor String Lights and Clips for Tent $40.05
Sand for Weight Bags, Dollies $70.56
Extension Cords and Adapter for Lights $26.00

Olustee Festival Feb 2019 Vendor Fee $156.97 (Pd for electricity which I couldn’t use)

Olustee Festival Revenue

Dark Purple Tulips & Purple Swarovski Crystal Beaded Earrings $10.00
Teal and Turquoise Caged Dark Green Crystal Heart Earrings $12.00
Budweiser Red White and Black White Glass Beads Upcycled Bottlecap Earrings $8.00
Yellow Brown White Dragonfly Recycled Rolling Rock Bottlecap Earring $12.00
Angry Orchard Red White and Opaque Red Glass Bead Bottlecap Earrings $8.00
Dark Green and Red Bead Post Earrings $6.00
Dark Teal Tulip Swarovski Crystal and Cube Beaded Earrings $10.00
Pink Lilly Flower and Pink Catseye Angel Earrings $12.00
Light Pink Crystal Heart Earrings $9.00
Ocean Blue Crocheted Scrunchie $6.00
Variegated Pastels Crocheted Scrunchie $6.00
Copper Toned Chain and Blue Bead Dangling Earrings $8.00
Variegated Pastels Crocheted Scrunchie $6.00
Seagrams Escapes White Palm Double Light Blue Tribead Bottlecap Earrings $8.00
Bronze and Orange Bead Earrings $8.00

So that’s $778.08 in additional expenses
Vendors Fee $156.97
Revenue $129
That leaves us $806.05 in the hole so far for the year.

We did make a couple of friends and the coffee neighbor turned out to be the coordinator for the Infinity Con the following month. We also gave away some business cards. We have to get better at giving those away in the future in order to, hopefully, simulate future interest and buyers for our online stores.

Next time we will talk about the Infinity Con results and in the mean time enjoy our slideshow below.