Small Business Saturday Blog

Arranging a craft fair is a bigger job than it might seem at first. Well, arranging a busy one is anyway! It starts of with a lot of venue and location research - having a well liked venue and good location is key. This doesn’t always mean it has to be based in the centre of town - we organise local village fairs too, and if the marketing within the community is right these can be just as popular. I am lucky that I am a maker myself and also take part in craft fairs across Sussex and London so therefore already have a range of craft contacts. This would be the next key step - researching, gaining and growing your contacts, as without the makers there is no fairs. We are lucky that our fair has continued to build its stall holder base since 2012 and have a strong base of high quality makers. This takes time to build, and fair-by-fair, word of mouth and recommendations help us to gain new talent for each fair. Next up I would say marketing is a very important part of any public event. You need to factor in a marketing budget into your stall prices as its often the most expensive part of the fair. You want to make sure you cover as many areas of marketing as possible - print, online, email, social media, blogs etc to reach as wider audience as possible. We print at least 5,000 flyers for each event with many of these delivered door to door in the surrounding area of each fair. We also place print ads with well known local magazines, and do a huge amount of social media sharing, blogging and online networking. It depends as to what your event is and what the target market is as to whether online or print is better so if you are unsure its probably worth trying both on a small scale to start with. The advantage of online ads - such as sponsored Facebook posts - is that you can track the clicks and stats, where as print is harder to judge a response to. This brings us to the all important big day of the event. I always set the alarm super early (3.30am for some events!) to get to the venue as early as possible. There is always lots to do - arranging tables, floor plans, cleaning, signage, etc that all take time. We always like to go the extra mile with decorations where possible too. As our fair is fairy tale themed we like to make it feel magical with handmade bunting, fairy garlands, fairy lights and little extra touches in the entrance. Kids in particular pick up on this and it brings families back again and again. Once we are set-up and the stall holders are in place, we post, tweet, share throughout the day so online followers can see what they are missing out on! We’ll share photos of freshly baked cakes, one off makes, workshops in action and beautiful painted faces to encourage visitors to get along before the end of the day. We think this final push is always important. Even if customers have planned on visiting, they often have so much on that they may forget, so it is a good idea to continue to remind them in the few days leading up to and on the day. Most importantly is that you, and your stall holders and customers enjoy the day! For more information about The Fairy Tale Fair or to ask Claire a question head to: www.thefairytalefair.co.uk. They have two events coming up this summer including a Children’s Day at Brighton Open Market this Friday 24th July - this is a non profit event with lots of free under the sea themed activities for the holidays. They also have their next craft fair at Brighton Open Market on Saturday 15th of August.