My First (And Second) Event

Several people asked me to share my thoughts and experience with my first event. It took me two weeks to process it all, so now it's my first two events. I'm going to start with the events themselves, then everything I did for the lead up.

Stock photo of a butt model. Not my butt.

Environment/Weather

We were lucky weather-wise. My tent was under the shade of a tree, and a mild breeze blew through all day. As a person easily overwhelmed by heat, I worried about getting heat exhaustion. For this reason alone, I need to have a booth buddy, let alone for trips to the bathroom.

Then the rain came. The event coordinator had us pack up early to avoid a storm; instead, we were packing in puddles. It rained so hard, it was coming through my tent. Thankfully, nothing was ruined except a few packing boxes, but we did have to unpack everything at home to dry it off before putting it away again.

(A forecast of storms for the entire day of my second event became a big storm in the night and perfect weather for the event itself. I was in the shade all day, but managed to get burned in the hour it took to tear down.)

Takeaways:

• Fill a cooler with ice, frozen water bottles and washcloths.

• Don't freeze your thermos because that sucker isn't going to thaw during the day.

• Get a battery operated fan.

• Spray all of your displays with some sort of waterproof sealer.

• Spray the top of your tent with water repellent.

• Have clear plastic sheeting in your odds and ends tote. If it pours, it's more effective to cover your merchandise than to try to rush pack it in the rain.

• Bring at least one bath towel.

• Bring sunscreen.

• If anything gets wet, towel it off as soon as you can. Don't put anything away wet.
  

People

Generally, I consider myself introverted, but maybe I'm not really. I just hate small talk. Give me silence over mindless weather chatter or recent sport event play-by-play any day. But I've learned that I could talk about art all day. I love it so much that I had zero problem interacting with strangers for six hours.

Takeaways:

• Be ready with examples of how to use items because people are easily stumped. Likewise, display items being used.

• Encourage people to sign up for your email list.

• Remind people why handmade items are special.

• Bring a polishing cloth because fingerprints will get everywhere.

• Eat lunch away from your booth or you will get distracted with customers and forget.

My booth at my second event.

Sales

Since I lost my job at the beginning of summer, art is now my job; however, a first business year isn't going to be great. I made okay sales, but I'd do a few things differently.

Takeaways:

• Stand up more. People seem more likely to engage when I'm standing, plus I just need to.

• Put business cards in the plastic bags holding my art prints.

• Pass out more business cards. (I pushed this hard at event two and had to restock my pile.)

• Focus on making connections, not just sales. Local shop owners, other artists, or anyone interested in learning your craft are all great connections to celebrate.

• Try to pick out a favorite interaction at each event. Write it down or tell people about it. Cherish it.

• Do you have any deals, like a free gift or bogo? Mention it!

• You might have some duplicate inventory on hand to fill orders, but don't put out doubles. People like the idea of scarcity.

• Put small impulse items by where you check people out, but also don't flood the front of your booth with only your priciest merchandise. For event two, I put my magnets out front with my mushroom boxes. Sold a ton of magnets, especially to kids and teens wanting something from the fair.

Preparation

I spent months getting ready for my first event, which is why I pivoted into doing it full time when I lost my job. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Advice:

• Join a vendor group on Facebook.

• Per the group I'm in, you need 40-50 pounds of weights per leg in case of wind. There have been many, many photos of tents picked up and blown like a sail. One hit a glass vendor booth. Yikes!

• That said, if you have delicate product or plan to do many events, get insurance.

• Think about your color theme. A good color theme is calming and eye-catching. It helps set the mood of what you're about.

• Get tablecloths that go to the ground so you can hide the mess of boxes and spare things under your table.

• Target's dollar spot, Dollar Tree and Dollar General are great places to pick up displays.

• Buy what you can when you can. I don't have a banner with my business name yet. Instead, I picked up a chalkboard from wedding clearance and painted my shop name and logo on it.

• Track your inventory. Tally what you put out, and tally your sales. Then you can match it up to the revenue you earned.

• A lot of people use Square to process credit card payments. Since I have a WIX website, I used their POS system. That said, you'll need time to set up all of your inventory in whichever system you use, so don't wait until a couple days before.

I'm sure there are more things to prepare for so feel free to post questions in the comments. Happy vending!