Most would be horrified if I told you in a busy year how much I spent on craft fairs, exhibitions, agriculture shows, etc. But I did it and will do it again because I make money at it, but I make money at it because I enjoy doing it, not as a way to make a living. Well not any more anyway. I was made redundant about ten years ago and did it for a living, in one year I did 55 shows. My distance travelled was as far afield as South Germany, and it was worth it, and I was invited to shows in Venice, which I declined, I don’t speak Italian!
Geoff, I can’t answer your question, nor can I give anyone the keys to financial success selling your hand made wares. What works for one at one show, fails miserably for others. One example, there is a show at which I have always sold well at. One year I turned up as usual to learn with dismay, that the organiser had bowed to financial pressure and accepted another Penturner who had been placed in an adjacent marquee. Bit upset I was, but despite the fact that some of the ranges he sold were the same as mine, and he was slightly cheaper with some of his offerings, I left with a turnover of £3000, he with £720. Why? Well consider this. What do you sell at shows? Pens? No - join he who sold £720 in three days (bored or what?). I know Gary Rance, and he taught me two lessons that made me a lot of money. Don’t sell pens, sell stories. Stories are a way to develop rapport with your customers, hold their attention and to make them smile. Learn the social history of wood, learn that us Brits used to tax the import of French wine with the dues paid in staves of yew that we then used to make longbows and kill them with. French yew is straighter grained and more suitable for making longbows! Make sure that you have some pens of yew, customer looks, ask him if he is looking to buy for his use or as a gift, answer gift, the ask if the intended recipient likes wine and tell them this story which the purchaser will be able to relate which makes the gift much more personal. Don’t ask closed questions.
What I am trying to suggest is that you need to move the emphasis away from penturning to the marketing element of the show. I will vary rarely got to a show if I can’t take a lathe with me. Stall presentation is paramount, put stuff on a flat table and you might as well stay at home. Mix you ball points with your fountains, one offs here and there, forget it, you want people to turn up, pick up a pen pay for it and........depart!
What I have found is that some shows people attend for entertainment, some to shop. The former forget it, you will be a very expensive exhibit. The worst one of all burghley horse trials, and also the worst theft record, £1500 a shot for the show, made that mistake once, never again. Full of ladies what lunch, and sadly ladies what steal, and since I wasn’t selling posh hats, silver Jewellry, or Kashmir jumpers I was wasting my time. One day agriculture shows that are the old style community farmers annual piss up for a £35 stall, happy days. Big agriculture shows, big crowds, big number of stalls, big entry charges, expensive family day out, waste of time.
I spent five years getting to find out which price point was spot on for each style of pen and finding out which shows worked for me, and what works for me won’t work for others and vice versa. You also have to know the show, Phil Dart mentions Crufts, people come from all over Europe for this show and it costs a fortune to exhibit, but some of the stalls are in awful positions with very limited footfall.
Oh and the other lesson, better than how to hold a skew! A pens a pen, put it in a box and it’s a gift. You wouldn’t buy exotic lingerie for your other half and put it in a tacky polythene bag, dump those horrid velvet sleeves, they’re ghastly ( in my opinion!).
You’ll have to be prepared to loose a bit of time and money to learn what type of show works for your range, get your prices right (and that’s another story,) understand who goes to each show and why, learn a bit about social history, learn to identify the time wasters, and develop your rapport building skills.
So to answer your question, every show works for someone but finding the right ones for you and your marketing style is the secret, as a very famous American marketing guru once said (whose name I have ironically long forgotten) 95% of my marketing budget is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which 5% works!
