This past Friday and Saturday I participated in the Make.Sale put on by the local art space Make.Shift. This was my first experience with doing a fair of any sort and it was a new experience! This is a local and pretty small fair, I kind of knew what to expect having gone to the venue in the past, however I had never been to the make.sale before. It was the type of fair where it is a good idea to have some low priced items as most who wandered through were there for the monthly art walk.
Before the fair I was really worried about how much inventory I had. I kept fluctuating on if I had enough, and decided to bring less of the more expensive items. The best seller was The Dog Pack deck of cards, priced at $16.
Setting up a display was fun! I was not allotted a ton of space but I tried to use both floor and table space. I think having a slightly bigger table in the future would be beneficial, I did not have much room for flat items on the table. The other thing I would do is have more labels, such as “Take a business card!”, etc.
Overall I made back my fair fee, but in the future I would definitely want to market the Custom Portraits as they are what gets the most interest. Due to the closeness to Christmas I actually played this aspect down because I am already full up on commissions.
