Our second show had MANY more people than the first, but..that is what is expected with anything new.
For advertising this year, we had people donate between $20-$50 for the ad in the newspaper, then we hand billed cars at Krogers, church, Kmart etc(check with the local city hall for legality in your area), I attended other craft fairs in the area and passed out flyers and vendor aps, Our school system has a mass email list of all teachers in the district we emailed every teacher...a whole lot of WOMA (word of mouth Advs), we have a local broadcast channel that was only a few bucks to advertise on and we had an interview in the newspaper about the project we are working on.
I think each year when you start out, you should set a goal for something (on top of the typical PTO expenses) this makes people more prone to want to attend or buy things when they have an idea were the monies are going.
I think our total expenses for having the craft fair including food, advertising, raffles etc was $50.00.
writermom, if you're in IL that may have been our show.
We are small PTO and the craft show was something we added 2 years ago. It was a rough start due to the fact that we had a VERY small amount OK'd for advertising. We are just thankful for those vendors that stuck it out with us as our 3rd annual craft show was 3 weeks ago and it was a much better turn out. We had about 20 vendors and by the end of the day, we had several asking us for the date for next year's event.
We also are not picky about our vendors and what they carry so long as it is something crafty or craft related. We had Partylite, Avon, Gold Canyon Candles, Pampered Chef, At Home America and even a vitamin & power drink company. When you have to start out small you can't be too picky.
We talked to another school that has their craft show 4th of July weekend and she told us it took her a good 5-10 years to build it up to a really great show. The biggest key is to get your contracts out many months in advance as a lot of the vendors book their shows up to 6-12 months in advance. We contacted her in Sept and she already had their contracts in the mail for the July 06 event. Stick with it and try not to get discouraged. Even with only 20 vendors, we made over $700.00 for our event. Doesn't sound like a lot but it's going up every year. As long as we're in the black we'll keep trying and hope those vendors that were disappointed with our show the 1st year will consider giving us parents who worked for months to pull the event off, a little slack and try it again.
What did you do in the way of advertising? I was a vendor in a craft show a couple of years ago that was in its first year and didn't advertise much. The customer turnout was terrible and I will never go back to that show. I'd like to avoid that at our show, yet as a little PTO won't have much in the way of funds for advertising--ideas on that?
I undestand now lol I still have a bit of brain drain from yesterdays show. Thanks for explaining.
We didn't have too many qualifications for being in the craft fair, we made it pretty simple. Basically if you had a "craft" and were willing to give us $15 you were in.
We didn't have any flea market type vendors even ask to be in the show, they were all crafts in one way or another except for the Gold Canyon Candles, Tastefully Simple,Home Interior, Longenburger, Avon, etc type booths which some craft fairs don't like to have...but they were just as successful selling their items as the "True" crafters.
My thoughts are for the first few craft fairs you have, you want to be able to fill your school with as many vendors as possible that want to support your school. Once you are considered "annual" then you can get pickier at the type of vendors you might want at your school.
I think juried means did people have to apply and send you pix of their stuff, or did you just let anyone pay the fee and come? Using a jury system helps the show be truly a craft show/ fair, and keeps out people who are selling imported trinkets or stuff they didn't make themselves.
I think it's great that you did so well. I'd like to try this idea maybe next year!
