Undecided need some help!!!

[Nijani]

Need some advice...just received an email from an events organiser asking if I want a stall at an "upmarket " craft fair in the West end of Edinburgh in June. Only 15 stalls, at £50 each + VAT. None of the fairs I have been to so far have made much more than £50. Apparnelty my product "fits the bill" for the type of clientele they are expecting and the shops in the area who have commissioned the event have looked at my website and also like the product!!!!.

Whilst that did give my ego a big stroke, I know that this company runs events all around central scotland and used to run the Fairs at Balerno and charge £45 a table, which was way OTT.

So should I risk it, I would need to outlay quite a lot in my high end materials to produce the garments for the stall, to cover this and the stall itself, I can't see there being much profit in it.....but what about the publicity.....:confused: I am stumped on this one. Help!!!!!!!!

[bynicki]

This is alwasys hard to try and decide. Try to find out if they have done the fair in that venue before and if so how many people did get get through the doors. Also how well do they market their fairs.

If you do decide to do it then make sure you have plenty of business cards or flyers with you and hand them out to everyone so even if they don't buy anything then they may in the future.

I am taking a few risks this year with some quite big shows that have cost a lot of money. I just decided that I needed to take the chance to push the business forward and see how it goes. Really it all comes down to who turns up on the day.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[swirlyarts]

I was in the same boat last year as I did a big 4 day event near to Christmas and it wasn't worth it for me. I nearly covered my costs for the stall but not quite and it did give me a chance to see what people thought of my work. The event wasn't advertised very well and I wouldn't do it again - many people were saying that they didn't realise that there was a craft fair on that day even though we had been assured that it was advertised thoroughly. It did lead to some of my work being shown in a gallery though and I had a lot of time to make new items!!
I would say go for it as they are approaching you and think that your products would suit. It's in their interests to make you happy as then you might do more events with them etc. You'll have to let us know what you decide to do!