What the exhibitors who do well at their first festival tend to have sorted out before they arrive.
Your first festival is not really three days long. Most of what decides how it goes happens in the months before and the weeks after. A consumer craft festival also rewards different things from a wholesale trade show, so these are the points we find ourselves making most often.
This is a consumer festival, so the person at your booth is buying for their own project, not placing a wholesale order. Price for retail, take card payments, and be ready to explain what something is for rather than what the margin looks like.
The booths that draw crowds at a craft festival almost always have a demonstration, a make-and-take, or something to touch. A table of boxed stock is easy to walk past. Even a five-minute repeating demo changes how long people stay.
Consumer shows sell through differently from trade shows. Popular colours and kits go first and fastest on the opening day, and there is no reorder cycle to fall back on. Plan restocking between days.
Beyond the space itself: furniture, lighting, drayage and material handling, shipping both ways, staff travel and hotel, payment processing fees, and packaging for what people carry out. These add up to real money and surprise first-timers most.
Your existing followers are the cheapest attendance you will get. Use the promotional graphics we supply, post your booth number, and give people a reason to seek you out, such as a festival-only colourway or an in-booth demonstration.
People plan their route from the exhibitor list and the hall plan before they arrive, and they navigate by number once inside. Put it on every post, every email, and on signage that is readable from the aisle.
A booth with one person closes every time that person needs a break. Two is the practical minimum across three festival days, and it lets one of you walk the floor and see what else is working.
The sale is the beginning. Collect email signups in the booth with something worth signing up for, so the festival keeps paying after the doors close.
Whatever you collect goes cold within about two weeks. Write the follow-up email before the show so it can go out while people still remember your booth.
Onsite takings are the visible part. New newsletter subscribers, repeat online orders, stockists who found you on the floor, and social growth all show up later. Decide before you go which of those you are measuring.
We can walk you through booth sizes, packages, and what a first year usually looks like.
