Successfully Participating in Quilt Shows

Making money at quilt and craft shows can be a challenge and very unpredictable. I always enjoyed doing this, but sometimes I didn’t net enough money to pay my booth or space fee or compensate for the work involved. 

 I learned there are some practices you can undertake that will help ensure success.  However, you can’t control such things as:  the weather, other events in the area, competitors, the economy.

For instance, a craft and quilt fair that was always successful drew a much smaller attendance than usual one year.  We learned that a large number of people, who usually came to the fair, attended a championship football game at the local high school.  This was something that couldn’t be anticipated for that particular afternoon.

Another time, thunderstorms closed a fair early…a heavy snow storm might cause a fair to be called off or rescheduled (on a day you have another commitment), construction on the highway near the fair location causes traffic to detour.  These are just a few of the challenges you run into.

But there are fairs/shows where you sell almost all you’ve brought, get orders for more, and meet lots of friendly people.  Learning how to prepare, how to advertise, how to promote, how to deal with show coordinators, what to bring, how to display and other issues of a show contributes to your being successful.

This book about making money at craft shows can apply to quilters, too, because many of the issues are the same, simply the products are different.

Do you have any successful craft/quilt show tips you’d like to share?  Do you have a web site or blog where you post these?