Craft Shows: My Rookie Year #2

Welcome back! Let’s talk about my FIRST, ever, ever craft show experience! Queue the scary music…dundunDUN! During the vendor research process I felt pretty confident that this was going to be an exciting a new experience but let me tell you once I actually booked my first show I became a nervous wreck once the preparations began. 

Adorable “OnTheYarn” tent banner my cousin made for me

I decided that the first one up would be the Katy Rice Harvest Festival in Katy, TX  (http://www.riceharvestfestival.org), I heard good things about the Rice Harvest and that it was a solid family event. The vendor fee was $125 for this event. I invited my cousin to share a table with me and split the cost of the registration fee, I would definitely suggest for a first-timer to go this route. It reduces a lot of stress, and now you have a buddy to take shifts with for food/bathroom breaks. 

 

In the weeks after the event registration I started crocheting my hiney off. I made crochet hair clips, lots of baby and toddler hats, a couple of blankets, and minion plush toys. I didn’t know what to expect, and what people would be looking for so I had to wing it in a sense with trial and error. I made sure all of my items had a size label and price tag on them, I purchased a 300/pck of hanging tags at Hobby Lobby for $2.00.  I probably had about 60 pieces in total. The event organizers allowed us to set up the night before at 8PM so with my niece, cousin, and her husband in tow, that’s what we did! The E-Z not so easy to set up tent (12X12) took us about an hour to put up. I had two 8X10 tables, two table cloths, three borrowed retail shelves, and three chairs. 

Fast-forwarding to the morning of the show – boy was it HUMID! I’ve lived in Houston all of my life and it still shocks me how crazy, humid it can be during the Fall. The forecast also called for rain the entireweekend which didn’t bode well for the outdoor event! The doors opened at 9AM and the crowds started to trickle in, quite a few people stopped by and browsed. I took a few large clothespins and hung a few hat models on the outside of the tent, that gave customers the chance to take a glance and draw them into our tent. The Minion beanies and plush toys were such a big hit – by the end of the day I was sold out, made me wish I had more! Katy, TX is big on high school football but surprisingly I didn’t sell a single one. Trial and error. 

Main hat table under the tent

The afternoon rolled around and it was super, super hot outside and we were sweaty messes but kept our spirits up. Then the rain came…

We got a sudden downpour and rushed to move all the tables into the middle of the tent, since the road was at a slant the back of our tent was completely flooded up to our ankles. We didn’t want to risk my cousin’s handmade greeting cards getting wet and curling – funny nightmare! It continued to rain on and off throughout the afternoon and stopped a little after 5. It didn’t stop people from attending the festival though, and we had a few customers seek shelter within our tent from the rain. Overall, Day 1 went pretty well despite the rain. I sold out of all my minion themed items, a few pumpkin hats, lots of hair clips, and some owl beanies. My goal was to cover my registration fee, I made that and a little extra! 

 

There’s not much to say about Day 2 except that it was TOTALLY rained out. Boohoo. I received an e-mail around 6:20AM as I glanced out the window of my apartment telling me that because of the inclement weather the Rice Festival could not successfully go forward with no additional refund – that was a bit of a bummer but understandable. 

My first weekend craft show, though only one day, felt like a successful one. I had a lot of fun with my family and talking to other vendors around. A lot of small business success stories which is always uplifting. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my blog post, I hope you’ll stick around for the next one! xo