In October of last year, I was a first-time vendor at a local fall festival! This was a two-day event held at Sagamore Farms in Baltimore County. Sagamore Farms is a horse farm associated with the distillery, Sagamore Distillery, located downtown Baltimore. The Farm is breathtaking! There is a huge field of sunflowers (my fave!), retired racehorses out to pasture, rolling fields of green, and picturesque red barns everywhere!
I was a bit nervous about being a vendor for the first time, as there seemed to be a lot of seasoned sellers at this event! Also, the first day was a double whammy of rain and wind (oh my!). One of my neighbors was gracious enough to lend me some of her extra tent weights, which helped ease my mind during the gusts of wind throughout the day.
Overall, I did ok on sales (I sold mostly art prints and the oyster ornaments I painted for the event)! Even though I didn't have as much luck with sales as I had hoped to, I had an absolute BLAST. I loved talking with the other vendors and seeing all of the products that brought their dreams to life. The local food trucks were AMAZING! (check out B'more Greek Grill on Facebook y'all!) My favorite part, however, was the kids art station that I set up! I have three kiddos myself, so I know how much they LOVE to create and get messy. I set up a little kids picnic table with a bucket of paints and scraps of canvas for them to go nuts with. I loved watching their imaginations go wild and chit chat with their little genius souls.
If you are an artist and are thinking about participating in a vendor fair for the first time, here is a list of my first-timer tips and tricks
- bring a chair and snacks/drinks!
- interact with EVERYONE who comes into your tent! You don't even have to just promote your products! MOST of my sales came from people who I was just chit chatting about life with
- invest in or borrow a good tent - I borrowed one from a neighbor
- have a portable display for your goods - this is something I wish I had done better. Set-up and take-down was a beast!
- have a way to accept credit card! I had a POS system that stopped working on me the first day (wahhh!) It would really have come in handy!
I hope this helps!
I see you friend! xo Kristin