e553ea5e770201ec751f1f91ba864a1d

Brooklyn's just a short drive from alabama, right? No? Oh well, but best of luck on your first table. Sounds like a fun day!

Haha yeah Spanky, right down the road.

Here's my simple setup, and Marsha with my blades and her forgings (she makes a range of work from pie pans to furniture). 

My first blade sold at a faire went to this gentleman, a collector that lives in the neighborhood. 

First bad choice was a grey  towel to prop em up. Second was no umbrella (what were we thinking!?); Ikea came through with two beach umbrellas.

The knife was a cash sale; should I be issuing receipts? I was one of the only tables with sales out of roughly 25... smaller than expected, with little foot traffic.

Any input is appreciated - I had little time to prepare, but am pleased with the one sale

Keep good records, you never know when they will come in handy. Be prepared to offer a receipt if the customer wants one. Can you take plastic? If not, get a Square as it may be the difference between making a sale, or losing one. Keep the display simple. If it is too busy it makes it hard for the customer to see items.

We do a number of shows each year, a couple of things that might shorten the learning curve. start a box of items that you will likely need at shows, here many require a fire extingusher, then I would add some tape the reciept book, a little wire, as time goes on you will develope your own box. the most important thing is being at the right show, since there were booths that did not make sales at this show I would plan on doing a different show that weekend next year. Prescout shows that you are interested in to see if they have a large flow of traffic or a flow of the special type customer you are looking for, remember your time is your most precious asset, try to use it wisely.

   Congratulations on making a sale at what I think may have been a poor show, ("to little foot traffic") good job.

Interesting. I'm watching this thread and have searched others on the same topic. I got invited to do a table at a crafts show in November, still a ways off, it's just a very local, small thing but would be a good chance to dip my toe in the concept. Theo, thanks for the pix. Helpful to see how people set things up.

Thank you all for the sound advice :) learning a lot

Good work.  It's gotta be a great feeling to sell something at your first show.  I'd second the recommendation of having some means of taking credit cards.  Lots of folks don't carry adequate cash to make an impulse buy for hand made work.

 

The receipts are a good idea too.

at my first show I sold 90% of my stock on the first day, mostly to one customer, then had to work all nite to make new items for the other 2 days

at my first show I sold 90% of my stock on the first day, mostly to one customer, then had to work all nite to make new items for the other 2 days

Yeah, but if have a feeling you've always been a bit of an overachiever! :)

was at a reenactment market and the customer was an eastern european armourer who was trading at the same event, he wanted tools

 

he came back for more on the sunday

I had been thinking if a customer wanted a receipt I could email them one - not sure how'd I issue one on the spot, maybe just have a blank form.

Paypal and other services offer those squares, I should nab one.

Receipt books are very cheap at Staples or even Walmart. I read some side by side comparison reports of the square versus the paypal. As much as I fundamentally just don't like paypal, if I ever came to needing one I'd go with that one. The squares seem to have some serious issues, and I've observed that myself, trying to buy things from other people using them. Both offer email receipts, which is nice.