Charges for Stall Holders?

Bonnie Potts

Hi, i'm looking into organising a Craft & Holistic fair in the midlands of Ireland. Does anyone have any suggestions about what's a fair charge for stall holders and what they would expect for the price? This will probably be in a community centre or hall of one of the country towns. Also i was thinking of putting on a facepainter to keep kids occupied - do i charge them for space or pay them for the service? Any other advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

TreasureBin

Hi. I attend loads of craft fairs, holistic fairs, bridal fairs. Bridal fairs are very expensive but for a craft or holistic fair I would expect to pay around €40 in a hotel, less in a community centre/town hall (I've seen charges of anything from €10 to €30). That normally includes a 6ft table and one or 2 chairs. A tablecloth may be included, but not usually.
What you really need to factor into your costs is advertising. If a lot of people turn up to your event but don't buy much, you're not too blame. But if there is a poor turnout, the other stallholders will almost certainly feel hard done by! So advertise well in the local press and radio.
Re face-painting, that varies. Sometimes they are paid to attend and don't charge the customers, but sometimes they are there like any other stallholder - to promote their business and charge for their services. If the fee is reasonable, it's not usually a problem.
If you are going to have a door-charge, you may want to include the face-painting, refreshments, and/or raffle ticket in that. If there is no door-charge, it would be reasonable to charge for everything else.
That's my thoughts anyway!

Tiriel

Hi Bonnie Potts,

Please do not create additional threads asking the same questions - people will answer you once they see your post, there is no need to keep posting! Other thread deleted.

The post above by Treasure_Bin is very helpful - best of luck with your venture!

Cork_girl

Bonnie Potts

Thanks TreasureBin, thats really useful information. Advertising can be expensive i know. The problem i've found with hotels is that most of them don't let you put up any banners or posters until the day which is not good. However i was hoping community centres and halls etc would allow a sign to be put up outside for at least a couple of weeks beforehand which i would hope would have a significant impact in the local area, particularly with word of mouth. As well as all the other routes of advertising of course.

Bonnie Potts

Cork_girl wrote: »

Hi Bonnie Potts,

Please do not create additional threads asking the same questions - people will answer you once they see your post, there is no need to keep posting! Other thread deleted.

The post above by Treasure_Bin is very helpful - best of luck with your venture!

Cork_girl

Sorry i'm new to this and couldn't find the original thread, thought i hadn;t posted it correctly! oops.

Tiriel

Bonnie Potts wrote: »

Sorry i'm new to this and couldn't find the original thread, thought i hadn;t posted it correctly! oops.

That's ok

A word of advice - if you can, get word of the craft fair to kids in schools - that should help bring in a good turnover of people, you could perhaps ask a teacher to hold an art competition - with all entries to be put up at the fair - a little prize and it would get word around! I know of someone who did something similar to this recently and it worked quite well!

Bonnie Potts

Cork_girl wrote: »

That's ok

A word of advice - if you can, get word of the craft fair to kids in schools - that should help bring in a good turnover of people, you could perhaps ask a teacher to hold an art competition - with all entries to be put up at the fair - a little prize and it would get word around! I know of someone who did something similar to this recently and it worked quite well!

Great idea also Cork Girl. Thanks a million!