Craft Shows – My 2 Cents

Another post sort of a follow-up to the one from Monday; yesterday was a Spring Craft Show that I have done for the last 3 years. This is normally one of my best Spring shows and I was surprised at the results of the craft show, which has made me step back and re-evaluate doing Spring/Summer craft shows entirely.

It was not for a lack of advertising that the show did, they always do a ton of advertising. But what was experienced was very unusual and I wonder if the state of the economy is really having that much of an effect on the overall spending habits of customers. The show is only one day and usually is wall-to-wall people; not this year. The show opened as usual at 9:00 a.m. and there were no customers until almost 10:30ish and at best it was a trickle all day long. This is a show that is usually a steady stream of customers from the time of opening until close at 3:00 p.m. Again, not this year, and the weather was beautiful, a little on the muggy side, but still, I can not contribute the weather to the poor turn-out.

In visiting with several vendors on/off all day, I came the conclusion that all shows, not just the church shows, but even the big stable weekend market days in and around the area are experience the same ‘no-show and no-buy’ experiences. One comment that was made by a customer is that job situations are just not stable enough for them to buy anything right now; only the stables, but they wanted to get out and support their church’s annual function.

Does this mean the possibility of church craft fairs may be coming to an end? Not many vendors I know are signing up for shows, until almost the last week before the show, for almost the same reasons; they can’t afford to do the shows when there are no buyers. On the other hand, what does it mean to the big weekend market days in the area; an end to a weekend get-a-way to browse and purchase from local area artists? From different forums I’m hearing that some shows are still going strong; people buying and no lack of economy driven slow down; while in other areas, many are struggling and disappearing because they can’t afford to stay in business. I don’t know for sure and since I don’t have a little crystal ball, it’s hard to determine whether or not to continue with the Spring shows or wait to see what Fall shows bring.