NI Craft Fairs 2010

personalpresence

smokiewater wrote: »

Welcome to all the new folks!

Jen - I agree with Fi on the debt collection area - don't be too soft, sometimes you just have to go for it!

Dragonfly - I was in the first hall on Saturday at the Elim, and while I went home happy, felt that there were just too many stalls, and too many of the same thing. Don't think any hall was busier than the other, friends of mine were in the foyer and didn't go home too happy either. What is worse abouta poorly attended fair, is when they take the tables down as you are packing up - someone actually lifted my stuff of the table, set it on the floor and took away the table!

Organizers this is what we remember:

Well attended shows
Shows that aren't so well attended, but are full of spenders!
Where they help you unload the van
Where the food is good - free teas, coffees and lunches are always welcome - the stew was great on Sat and just £2.50
And of course awful shows that you would never do again!

Anyone got anything else to add to that list?

Parking/Unloading

I was at a fair on Saturday and the parking situation was awkward. The venue's adjacent car park was a short stay/pay car park.
So we all had to unload, then pay, then move our cars across the road - which was a one way street. So to load up again, you had to go around the block, just to get across the road. This situation wasn't explained before hand either - well not to me anyway.
Very awkward if you are on your own. Although on the up side, the ladies were very helpful with offers of assistance with unloading

Is that the sort of thing? Or would this information only be useful if the venue was mentioned? ( which I don't think is what you want to do)

SheDee

smokiewater wrote: »

Welcome to all the new folks!

Jen - I agree with Fi on the debt collection area - don't be too soft, sometimes you just have to go for it!

Dragonfly - I was in the first hall on Saturday at the Elim, and while I went home happy, felt that there were just too many stalls, and too many of the same thing. Don't think any hall was busier than the other, friends of mine were in the foyer and didn't go home too happy either. What is worse abouta poorly attended fair, is when they take the tables down as you are packing up - someone actually lifted my stuff of the table, set it on the floor and took away the table!

Organizers this is what we remember:

Well attended shows
Shows that aren't so well attended, but are full of spenders!
Where they help you unload the van
Where the food is good - free teas, coffees and lunches are always welcome - the stew was great on Sat and just £2.50
And of course awful shows that you would never do again!

Anyone got anything else to add to that list?

Agree with you about number of stalls to the number of people attending and the same thing happened to us when we were clearing up!!!

stephen007

Hi
Was at my first craft fair don't want to say where but there were loads of people there and I did well for my first craft fair. My only gripe and I am only writing this to get it off my chest was that as it was my first fair i was unsure of the protocal. So when i arrived I paid my £25 to the lady organising it and set up my table. It came to the end of the day and another lady who was helping out came over and asked me for my money, i explained to her that i had paid before I set up and she said the orgainiser had not told her but she took my word for it, now here is my GRIPE. I was the first table the lady who was collecting the money came to, she went to the table beside me and asked them how they got on, they had not done very well as during the day I did not see much being sold, and to my horror she did not take any money off them!!!!!!!!!!!! I was gobsmaked. I just stood there dumbfounded and thankfully my wife seen my expression and prevented me from making a scene. When was the fees based on your ability to sell your products. YOU PAY YOUR MONEY YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCE, YOU HAVE GOOD DAYS AND YOU HAVE BADS DAYS. As i said i had to get this off my chest, but as this was my first fair should i not have paid up front and pleaded poverty when the money collector came a knocking!!! Thanks I though I would feel better but I am still a bit pis**d off!!!!!!

homemade_candles

I must say I done absolutly fab on sat altho all the doe is goin to fix my car it was awful trying to set up and pack everything away! I need to get a trolley lol. It was also great meeting new people and catching up the crafters on here

Hopefully it will pick up for everyone!
xx

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

CraftyLil

Hi All

Still finding my feet in the Craft World, have only done one fair so far but already IM HOOKED Where is the best place to find out about upcoming events, im willing to travel any where??

Rach39

stephen007 wrote: »

Hi
Was at my first craft fair don't want to say where but there were loads of people there and I did well for my first craft fair. My only gripe and I am only writing this to get it off my chest was that as it was my first fair i was unsure of the protocal. So when i arrived I paid my £25 to the lady organising it and set up my table. It came to the end of the day and another lady who was helping out came over and asked me for my money, i explained to her that i had paid before I set up and she said the orgainiser had not told her but she took my word for it, now here is my GRIPE. I was the first table the lady who was collecting the money came to, she went to the table beside me and asked them how they got on, they had not done very well as during the day I did not see much being sold, and to my horror she did not take any money off them!!!!!!!!!!!! I was gobsmaked. I just stood there dumbfounded and thankfully my wife seen my expression and prevented me from making a scene. When was the fees based on your ability to sell your products. YOU PAY YOUR MONEY YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCE, YOU HAVE GOOD DAYS AND YOU HAVE BADS DAYS. As i said i had to get this off my chest, but as this was my first fair should i not have paid up front and pleaded poverty when the money collector came a knocking!!! Thanks I though I would feel better but I am still a bit pis**d off!!!!!!

Stephen - I think generally it's not really that cut and dried! Most of the time the situation doesn't arrive because we normally have to pay by post with a cheque well before the event - although even then I have attended a handful of fairs where the attendance has been so bad and it has been attributable to the organisation, where a refund or part refund has been requested (and quite often granted) after the event. In ones where you're paying on the day you do have the power to try and negotiate a better deal with the organisers if you have done particularly poorly - in a lot of cases the organisers are fine with this since 'good' organisers like to keep their stallholders happy and wanting to attend future events. Sometimes a discount is refused point blank (maybe because poor sales could not be attributed to poor attendance overall or it has nothing to do with the organisation) and if that's the case I would always pay in full with no complaint because it works both ways - you don't want to be blacklisted from any future events! You did the right thing to pay up front, but the stallholder who did badly and was allowed to get away with not paying did not necessarily do anything wrong either!

Rach39

CraftyLil wrote: »

Hi All

Still finding my feet in the Craft World, have only done one fair so far but already IM HOOKED Where is the best place to find out about upcoming events, im willing to travel any where??

check the list on previous pages of this thread - contact details provided for each fair, take your pick!

Rach39

Anyone with me at Friends school tonight? I'll have my wee helper (DS) last time I brought him he decided to have a sale half way through the night and put all my prices down - DOH!!

fi99

stephen007 wrote: »

Hi
Was at my first craft fair don't want to say where but there were loads of people there and I did well for my first craft fair. My only gripe and I am only writing this to get it off my chest was that as it was my first fair i was unsure of the protocal. So when i arrived I paid my £25 to the lady organising it and set up my table. It came to the end of the day and another lady who was helping out came over and asked me for my money, i explained to her that i had paid before I set up and she said the orgainiser had not told her but she took my word for it, now here is my GRIPE. I was the first table the lady who was collecting the money came to, she went to the table beside me and asked them how they got on, they had not done very well as during the day I did not see much being sold, and to my horror she did not take any money off them!!!!!!!!!!!! I was gobsmaked. I just stood there dumbfounded and thankfully my wife seen my expression and prevented me from making a scene. When was the fees based on your ability to sell your products. YOU PAY YOUR MONEY YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCE, YOU HAVE GOOD DAYS AND YOU HAVE BADS DAYS. As i said i had to get this off my chest, but as this was my first fair should i not have paid up front and pleaded poverty when the money collector came a knocking!!! Thanks I though I would feel better but I am still a bit pis**d off!!!!!!

stephen are you sure they hadnt already paid in advance? a lot of us pay in advance wen booking fairs.
and i agree with rach we have all had our mix of fairs, some absolutely terrible ones and sometimes it is cause the organiser did not advertise properly and we have all gone TOGETHER and asked for a redund, aswell you dont want to complain too much to organisers or they wont have you back

stephen007

Hi, No the stall holder looked as surprised as I was at not having to pay, don't get me wrong I have nothing against the stall holder, fair play and all that, it the organiser i have the issue with, should be a level playing field and everyone treated the same>