Anyone experience with craft/gift fairs

millionaire-to-be

HI

One of my ideas is to start running these in the local area just wondered if anyone had any experience to pass on in particular any insurances etc i should be thinking off.

Need a venue, what insurance do i need
how much would people pay for a stall & chairs etc
should i offer refreshments

as you can tell its an idea in early days just wondered if anyone had any thoughts.

thank you for taking the time to read.

InsideInsurance

millionaire-to-be wrote: »

Need a venue, what insurance do i need
how much would people pay for a stall & chairs etc
should i offer refreshments

That would depend on your contract with the owner of the venue and if you have any staff. It would be safest to assume that you should have Public Liability and this may be contractually required and if you have any employees that arent close family then you need Employers Liability. Assuming you arent selling anything yourself there is no need for product liability.

Its going to be hard to judge the amount you can charge for stalls, it will depend in part what you are providing for them but mainly by what sort of footfall you are going to be able to generate. A quick look up of other local fairs and a call to pretend to be a potential stall holder will tell you what your competitors are charging but if they are established then they can potentially ensure a footfall of X people per day.

Who are the refreshments for? The public? It generally just creates a bit of headache for you so I wouldnt but depending on your location you may want to consider if you'd want some sort of food/ drink provider to have a space in or near your venue.

Mistral001

There is a crafting section on this forum and also craft fairs come up quite often on this section of the forum, so a search should bring up some good results.


I remember several threads where insurance for stall holders was discussed. If I remember correctly some posters said that some craft fair organisers require stall holders to take out insurance.

Charityworker

I'm a craft Fayre organiser. It's quite hard to do but rewarding at times. You'll never make a million out of it but it's a nice sideline. You'll need public liability insurance. For mine I have 2 great venues in the town centre with a massive passing trade on the day. I viewed lots of different venues before settling on these and I chose them because the people in charge of the venues were willing to cooperate with me about putting up signs advertising my events. I've got 540 craft sellers on my books and it's going up by 2 or 3 per day and most of my networking is done through facebook. The down sides to this is I spend hours every week pacing the streets asking shops to put up posters. Then some of the shops take a poster and then don't put it up. I'd rather they politely say no and I can take the poster to a shop that will. The other down side is that you sometimes get stall holders who don't sell much and then try to blame that on you not organising it very well or not advertising it properly. Sorry to go on about downsides a lot but another is that the competition between stall holders is fierce. If you give one stall holder an inch more than another your risking a scene. Yesterday I ran a Fayre where one stallholder threatened to punch another because she said her table was too close to hers! Theres also all the payments to keep track of and people dropping out at the last minute. Not trying to put you off, just telling it how it is.

The good side of it is being self employed which in my opinion is 100% better than working for any cretinous boss, helping very small local businesses which is very rewarding, and the thanks you get from 80% of your stall holders for helping them with their businesses. Let me know if you need any more info.

millionaire-to-be

Just to say thank you for all your info and advice, am totally new to this so any help is much appreciated.

InsideInsurance

Mistral001 wrote: »

I remember several threads where insurance for stall holders was discussed. If I remember correctly some posters said that some craft fair organisers require stall holders to take out insurance.

You will normally find that everyone holds PL insurance, the stallholders, the fair arranger and the building owner. Everyone wants the person below them in the chain to hold insurance to try and ensure there own isnt hit by an incident.