My FIRST EVER Market/Craft Show!

My first market I was ever a vendor at was in December of 2023 at a winery on the lake!

I learned SO MUCH from that first market. I was so freaking excited, but I was also super nervous too. I had never done ANYTHING like this before! 

I am  here to tell you about my experience, and give YOU the motivation to sign up for your first craft show/market/fair!

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Back to today’s topic, my very FIRST market/craft show!

I had been sewing and making things for a while, and many friends were telling me to sell at markets and fairs, so one day I decided to just go for it.

You can read about how I got to where I am and about my sewing journey here!

I have clearly done a lot, and sold a lot of the random things I’ve made. I obviously have a hard time finding a specific niche! And honestly, I still don’t. I usually rotate what I take to markets based on the type of customers that will be there.

Being that this market is at a winery AND it’s on the lake, I decided to take advantage of both of those facts. I also couldn’t decide on sewing related things or Cricut related things, so I did a little bit of both!

To help myself “niche down” I decided my niche would be “wine and lake” theme.

For the sewing portion, I just stuck to making Wine Bags! 

What better way to market my product, than to tell people to buy a bottle of wine for a loved one, and put it in this bag that can keep being re-gifted??

I went through trial and error on sizes and measurements, but I finally perfected my Wine Bag design. You can check out my self-drafted pattern here!

I had plain ones with just fabric, different types of fabric, and I also had some I put vinyl on some that matched the lake and wine themes.

I also decided to do some Cricut projects, but a little different. 

When you search Cricut projects or whatever on Pinterest, the same general things come up over and over again. Everybody does cups and keychains and shirts etc., but I wanted something slightly different to stand out.

For the Cricut stuff, I ended up buying picture frames, putting wine and lake theme designs on the glass, and then gluing the glass down to the back so it was a clear sign!

It took a while to make them, but most of them turned out super well!

I also made a few other wood/metal signs because I found some material that I really liked!

Now that I had my main two products and enough stock made, I was off to the market!

I did TONS of research beforehand, but tbh I totally winged it still. I did not practice my set up AT ALL. I just knew I had a 10×10 spot. I have my own 6ft folding table, and I made a sketchy stand for the signs out of PVC and a peg board.

I bought wooden boxes to help add elevation to my table, but that was about it. I am still pretty proud of how my table turned out!!

I haven’t done many markets still, so my display is still pretty cheap and basic with my wooden boxes, but I have a lot planned for this year! I am taking this as my sign to finally upgrade!

Before we jump into the nitty gritty details, I should first preface this by letting you know that I do not have ANY of my notes from this market… When I graduated college, we were told we would have lifetime access to our emails… well that was a lie and they recently took access away from us. I got most of my important documents off my Google Drive, but I forgot about my craft fair folder that had all my information, notes, and pricing calculations in it!!

Which means, this article is going mostly off memory. I don’t have a great memory, but I remember most of the important things!

So, for the market itself….

I believe this was from 12-6pm. Set up starting around 1030am, and tear down after 6pm.

Again, this was a holiday market in December….. We were in a tent extended from the main building with heaters in it. We were getting so cold out there! We were told this event was inside, which we all assumed meant “inside the building”, not “inside a tent”. A few lucky vendors were inside, but a majority of us were outside.

I packed some stuff to keep me warm, but I also didn’t think I was going to freeze out there! If I would have known, I would have packed differently.

It was a relatively small market, especially compared to other ones this winery had done. I believe there were only about 20 vendors. In my opinion, there were too many big name distributors compared to personal businesses like myself.

My spot was near a corner, and I was stuck in the middle of 3-4 big name distributors. I believe this definitely hindered my business a little bit. People probably saw those big names, and just kept walking, not even thinking to pay attention to every table that was there.

When the market first opened, it was PACKED. There were a ton of people coming through. I sold quite a bit in the first 2-3 hours. 

But….. after those first 3 ish hours, only like 10 people came through during the last half!!

Things were great when it was busy, but once it died down…. It got soooo cold in there with so many less people. There was a heater in the corner that all of us vendors were gathering around!

I had been keeping track of my sales, so I knew exactly how much money I had made at that time.

Again, I sadly do not have my exact notes or totals anymore since I did not pull them out of that Google Drive before losing access 🙁 

I do remember, I had made more than enough to almost double my booth fee during those 3 hours!

While we were all huddled around the heaters and talking, many of the vendors there were saying how they hadn’t even sold enough to cover the booth fee yet and they were hoping more people would show up.

Since only a couple people came through towards the second half of the market, many of the vendors packed up almost 2 hours early because they had already considered it a bust. I read sooo much online about how leaving early is a huge “no-no” in the market world. The market was scheduled until 6, and I told myself I would stick it out unless I was like THE LAST vendor left.

Just a few minutes before it hit 6, I was finally starting to break some of my stuff down and pack it up. I was one of the last vendors to start packing and tearing my area down.

Luckily I waited!!

A couple families came through at the last minute and saw most people were packed up or gone and I made several more sales being one of the only vendors still open!! 

And those sales pushed me over the amount to double my booth fee!!

This was super exciting because it shows that you should always wait until the end before you call your market a bust. If other people had stayed set up longer, they could have made more sales too.

I still considered this market a WIN!! Especially for it being my first market and I was sooo unprepared compared to other people!!

I learned sooo much, and I was so inspired. 

I didn’t have another market planned, or even an idea of when I wanted to do another, but I knew more markets would be in my future!!

Have you done a market/craft show yet? What is holding you back?