day 3 of our weekly craft fair is done and i think it went really well :D it rained for an hour in the middle so we played pictionary until it stopped
#the winner got a little art supply goody bag i put together
*tries to vanish mysteriously into the fog but you can still see me because i’m wearing light-up shoes*
(via alligatordemon)
#me at the escape room when a guest complimented my docs while i was trying to scare them
The community mural thing sounds awesome! How did you set that up? I think a paint by numbers thing would be cool where you outlined a drawing and set out some colors
a paint by numbers sounds cool! for this one i just put out a giant tarp and a table full of different art supplies and let people do whatever unsupervised
my favorite addition so far is this dog named THE GROCERY STORE
deleted it the first time cuz i got shy but here it is again 🙈 footage from the outdoor portion of my weekly arts and crafts fair
how did you go about setting up that art fair/market? it looks really fun and id love to see something/set something up for my area!
kiwi:
i totally recommend starting a craft fair, its a great way to bring your community together! just be aware it’s a TON of work, especially if you’re doing it yourself. i did a lot of the planning myself, but i got a lot of help from friends, especially for the execution, and i absolutely couldn’t have done it without them.
first, figure out what resources you have. do you have a venue? i was lucky enough that my place of work let me hold the event there, but if you don’t have a space, you’ll have to work that into your budget. keep in mind that you want to find a place with as much foot traffic as possible. you will also have to consider specific problems with the venue you choose; indoor venues may require lighting, outdoor venues might need shade. do you have chairs and tables or will people need to bring their own? do you personally have anything to bring? (i had a button machine, so we used it to make a DIY station. we also used several of our own tables, chairs, lights, and speakers from home.)
what is your budget and how will you gather it? our budget came from renting out spaces and tables per day. Even if you don’t have tables to rent out, it’s a very good idea to charge for spaces. This both guarantees that you won’t have too many vendors for your space, and that the vendors who apply will show up. You will have significantly more vendors drop at the last minute if you don’t charge for spaces.
Finding vendors is challenging at first. A good chunk of our vendors came from people we knew personally. Our friends and neighbors were where we started, and then they started telling their friends and neighbors. As the event went on, more artists heard of us and asked to be part of it. We made a lot of social media posts and directly reached out to classmates and friends with online merch stores. Admittedly this part was easier for us than it would be for most people, since my friends, my coworkers, and I are all very involved in the local creative scene.
Advertising is also a really tough one. We reached out to a LOT of different groups, mostly kid based ones since we were aiming at attracting families. (Scouts, YMCA, boys and girls club, churches, shriners, motorcycle clubs, lions clubs, radio stations, podcasts, facebook marketplace, etc) We also put up posters in areas nearby with a lot of foot traffic, and asked local store owners to display our flyers. Just go walking in the area and see what kind of community boards you can find, or which shops might be interested.
The thing that attracted the most people, unfortunately, was going to the nearby park and handing out flyers DURING the event. It helps to wear a silly costume to be more approachable, just dont get heat stroke in a stupid pirate outfit in the park like i almost did. not gonna lie this part isnt for everyone. its physically intensive and you have to go out of your way to bother strangers going about their day and some of them will not appreciate that lol
Consider having some activities for your event that arent just about spending money. My event goal was to bring people together with art, so I added activities like community murals. This is also admittedly a really tough one to come up with ideas for, since you have to public-proof it.
i made a BAZILLION lists of everything possible and it really helped keep me organized. use the hell out of some spreadsheets and keep a list of literally everything. make layouts of what needs to go where. make sure you give your vendors info about stuff like parking, set up times, and schedule changes. overall just stay so inhumanly organized because it all gets overwhelming very fast
so anyway yeah!! if anyone has more questions about how i pulled it off feel free to ask!
Yall got funding from anyone?
nope! all our budget came from rentals. we were able to get a lot of stuff for very cheap or free from dollar stores, scouring facebook marketplace, and overall just being very lucky
#every free moment ive had for the last month or so has been spent #looking at fb marketplace and cold calling #and painting signs. oh god all the signs
how did you go about setting up that art fair/market? it looks really fun and id love to see something/set something up for my area!
i totally recommend starting a craft fair, its a great way to bring your community together! just be aware it’s a TON of work, especially if you’re doing it yourself. i did a lot of the planning myself, but i got a lot of help from friends, especially for the execution, and i absolutely couldn’t have done it without them.
first, figure out what resources you have. do you have a venue? i was lucky enough that my place of work let me hold the event there, but if you don’t have a space, you’ll have to work that into your budget. keep in mind that you want to find a place with as much foot traffic as possible. you will also have to consider specific problems with the venue you choose; indoor venues may require lighting, outdoor venues might need shade. do you have chairs and tables or will people need to bring their own? do you personally have anything to bring? (i had a button machine, so we used it to make a DIY station. we also used several of our own tables, chairs, lights, and speakers from home.)
what is your budget and how will you gather it? our budget came from renting out spaces and tables per day. Even if you don’t have tables to rent out, it’s a very good idea to charge for spaces. This both guarantees that you won’t have too many vendors for your space, and that the vendors who apply will show up. You will have significantly more vendors drop at the last minute if you don’t charge for spaces.
Finding vendors is challenging at first. A good chunk of our vendors came from people we knew personally. Our friends and neighbors were where we started, and then they started telling their friends and neighbors. As the event went on, more artists heard of us and asked to be part of it. We made a lot of social media posts and directly reached out to classmates and friends with online merch stores. Admittedly this part was easier for us than it would be for most people, since my friends, my coworkers, and I are all very involved in the local creative scene.
Advertising is also a really tough one. We reached out to a LOT of different groups, mostly kid based ones since we were aiming at attracting families. (Scouts, YMCA, boys and girls club, churches, shriners, motorcycle clubs, lions clubs, radio stations, podcasts, facebook marketplace, etc) We also put up posters in areas nearby with a lot of foot traffic, and asked local store owners to display our flyers. Just go walking in the area and see what kind of community boards you can find, or which shops might be interested.
The thing that attracted the most people, unfortunately, was going to the nearby park and handing out flyers DURING the event. It helps to wear a silly costume to be more approachable, just dont get heat stroke in a stupid pirate outfit in the park like i almost did. not gonna lie this part isnt for everyone. its physically intensive and you have to go out of your way to bother strangers going about their day and some of them will not appreciate that lol
Consider having some activities for your event that arent just about spending money. My event goal was to bring people together with art, so I added activities like community murals. This is also admittedly a really tough one to come up with ideas for, since you have to public-proof it.
i made a BAZILLION lists of everything possible and it really helped keep me organized. use the hell out of some spreadsheets and keep a list of literally everything. make layouts of what needs to go where. make sure you give your vendors info about stuff like parking, set up times, and schedule changes. overall just stay so inhumanly organized because it all gets overwhelming very fast
so anyway yeah!! if anyone has more questions about how i pulled it off feel free to ask!
good god when the fast car by tracy chapman hits
(via appalachian-geek-girl)
#this post made me feverishly open spotify