Craft Fairs & Woodturning.

[Scrums]

In the current (January / 183) edition of Woodturning there's an article .....tongue in cheek hopefully, by someone doing their first ever craft show. £26 for a table and takings of £14 at the end of the day !

He'd hoped for enough takings to invest in a bandsaw and something towards a holiday !! :roll:

A few pages later, there's a letter in the Art v Craft debate where the guy says he'd never take anything +£20 to a craft show - that it doesn't sell.

I just wondered what others experiences of selling at craft shows were, does anyone else do them - do they find them worthwhile?

Chris

 

[JackL]

Generally a waste of time.
I've found that (funnily enough) large platters or bowls sell quite well, but otherwise very little goes. Lot's of admirers but very few buyers.
I think that in four years, we've managed to cover the cost of the stall on five ocassions.
So called "Craft Fairs" seem to be more like car boot sales these days with lots of imported plastic tat and bought in "craft" items.
We now tend to do just National Trust Fairs around Christmas and we've done OK at these.

 

[RATWOOD]

The three p's come to mind pick up put down and pi@@ off

 

[paulm]

Depends on a lot of different things in my experience.

First off, unless it's a prestigious event that will attract a lot of well heeled visitors with cash to burn, and most are not, then you are most likely to shift only the usual small stuff, light pulls, keyrings, mushrooms, fruit, smaller bowls, pens etc.

Most people seem to go to craft fairs for entertainment and a day out rather than to spend much money, but they might be tempted with an impulse buy under a fiver or even if you are lucky splash for a smaller bowl or similar at ten to twenty quid, but most sales in my experience are under a fiver.

The exception I've found to that is near Xmas where people are desperate for ideas and something different for presents and are resigned to spending a bit of dosh and in those circumstances I have been able to shift more stuff in the ten to twenty price range but not very often anything more expensive.

Bit sad but true that most people aren't willing to value the craftsman time and seem reluctant to pay say thirty quid for a large salad bowl even though in the posh kitchen shops in London the large ones start well in excess of £100, but of course that covers retail costs etc.

Even so, to make a large bowl, from sourcing the raw material, breaking it down and converting to blanks, turning and finishing etc takes a fair bit of time and even if you only priced your labour at say McDonald's rates of whatever it is now say £6.50 per hour you would probably have spent a good few hours start to finish even before you add in overheads, travelling and stall fees let alone a profit margin, so thirty or even forty quid may well not even cover your basic costs.

So I think the opportunity is at the bottom end and the top end of the market (the really creative fine and artistic stuff that the likes of Stuart Mortimer etc do that they can rightly charge many hundreds of pounds for), but the middle ground is pretty difficult.

Guess many hobbyists like myself end up selling surplus stock just to plough some money back into the hobby and making a profit or even covering costs isn't the objective, but there is an argument that this in itself undermines the pro's who need to charge more to keep going.

Cheers, Paul

 

[Scrums]

Now's maybe a good time to add my experiences.

Mostly I find Chisel spot on - you don't generally sell much above the £20 mark, the best I've had is for a Spalted Beech bowl at £38. Generally bowls make up only about 20 - 25% of my sales, people only want to pay £12/15 max'.

So what's the answer?......do stuff that they will pay for - 'Housewares' and usable things rather than the purely decorative seem to sell well, especially in the current economic climate. But stay away from Mug Trees, Chopping boards and Rolling Pins - you'll never compete with Asda/Aldi etc.

My rule of thumb is if I can't produce at least £20 of retail turning per hour then it don't get made - or I need to figure out another way of making it and make it faster.

So far we've not been too disappointed - only one duffer - totally the wrong venue, stall £8.50, takings £7.50. But it was Mrs Scrums idea, she did it and made up the shortfall !

We've done a two-dayer at £43 rent and taken £500 ish. We've done a one day in a marquee (heated - thankfully) where it rained continuously all day and took £300 over 5 hours.

I do hope we've got the formula right - we've got about 80 booked for this year so far.

Chris.

 

[Bob Chapman]

My approach to craft fairs is to make a range of items at different prices, starting at about a tenner and going up to around £250. The lower priced items are made specially for the fair, the more expensive items are made because I wanted to make them, and I'm selling them because I don't know what else to do with them. I sell more bowls than anything else, perhaps because I make more bowls than anything else. A ten inch diameter bowl sells for around £65, more if it has interesting features, less if I think the design didn’t quite work. All items are finished to the best standard I can achieve – no tool marks, no sanding marks, no bumps or hollows in the bottom of the bowl, a satin smooth finish usually waxed but sometimes oiled.

When I offer them for sale I rarely attach uses to my bowls. For example I never call a bowl a ‘salad bowl’. I think it lowers the price immediately. Instead I leave it to the customer to decide the use. If they ask me for a salad bowl I’ll point out one or two that I think ‘could be used for salads’, and explain that the wax shine will go when they get wet. I will also explain why I think these examples are particularly suitable for salads, but I still don’t call them salad bowls - they are sold as high quality bowls which might be used for salads, not ‘salad bowls’.

I sell more in the £20 to £65 range than anything else (not exclusively bowls), but usually reckon to sell a few pieces in the £65 to £100 range, and more expensive pieces if I’m lucky. I have sold £200+ pieces, more than once.

I have to agree that, increasingly, the public seem to approach craft fairs in the same way they approach markets - i.e. expecting bargain prices rather than quality workmanship, and also increasingly craft fair organisers let the craftsperson down by having stalls selling cheap 'bought in' goods that ought to be on a market stall. I'm waiting for someone to take one to task under the trade descriptions legislation. The word 'craft' ought to mean something, I feel. The last time I followed a 'craft centre' sign it lead me to an 'Edinburgh Woollen Mill' shop, and I was very annoyed by it!

I too have great experience of the three p's, but have never failed to cover table costs. I have had days when it’s been a close run thing, though. Conversely I’ve had brilliant days when I’ve taken £1000 or more. Unfortunately its quite unpredictable, and I’m seriously thinking about giving up regular craft fairs to concentrate on teaching, demonstrating and writing. They are much more dependable and I enjoy them more. It's interesting to hear what the experience of other turners has been.



Bob

 

[PowerTool]

In the current (January / 183) edition of Woodturning there's an article .....tongue in cheek hopefully, by someone doing their first ever craft show. £26 for a table and takings of £14 at the end of the day !

Chris

The guy is Simon Whitehead,and writes some of the most entertaining articles I've ever read! (I got the February/184 edition yesterday - no Simon Whitehead article )

My experience of selling is,sadly,the same as many others - large platters seem to do well,but most sales are the £5 ones.People can go into the supermarket and buy a wooden bowl for under a fiver (admittedly,mass-produced segmented rubberwood) which seems to devalue anything well crafted of a similar size;it's only those people with some knowledge of timber and woodwork who seem to have some appreciation of it's worth.

Andrew

 

[greggy]

bob, where would i find info of craft fairs in the yorkshire area, as i would like to attend a few and give it a go, thanks.

 

[Bob Chapman]

Hi Greggy,

You could try these:

http://www.yorkshirefairs.co.uk/

http://www.wensleyfairs.co.uk/

I've done fairs with Yorkshire Fairs, but not Wensley Fairs. They were OK but not brilliant. I've also done fairs at Harewood House and Newby Hall. If you look on their websites you can contact them and get details - that's what I did, but can't find the actual addresses now. They are pricey - around £350 for a six foot table for three days, but I made a profit at both, although it wasn't enormous at Newby. Until this year I did a fair at a local school which was the most consistent earner - £500 in three and a half hours this November - but I know they've already got a replacement for me.

You need to ask around. Visit fairs and ask who the organisers are. Remember you must be prepared to speculate in order to accumulate. Small church hall type fairs rarely bring in much of a buying public. If you only have to pay £25 for the table, don't expect much in the way of advertising etc., and don't be surprised if you don't sell much.

Time of year is an important factor. I usually do fairs in the Christmas run-up, although I took £1200 in three days in the summer, at Harewood about two/three years ago.

Best of luck if you try any of these.

Bob

 

[mr]

Craftsman magazine http://www.craftsman-magazine.com/ do listings of all the crafts fairs in the UK with contacts and costs etc. It's a case of going to the right fairs I think.

Cheers Mike

 

[greggy]

wow bob, many thanks for the info.i will look at the sites when i get home from work later. mr, i will also check out the magazine one. thanks very much guys. kind regards.

 

[Bodrighy]

I have only attended craftfairs as an observer and have been astounded at the low quality of some of the things for sae. Same applied to the street fairs where the occasional turner has a stall. It seems as though all too often the stalls are a way of getting rid of the things that didn't turn out right. That said I have also seen some incredible things that I can only aspire to achieve myself.

My own experience of selling has been through charity sales, school sales and at work where I have set up a web site for people to see examples of work. I, like most have found that people admire the more expensive things and buy the cheaper ones. Having said that I sold £50 worth of keyrings as stocking fillers this Christmas as well as bowls and vases. As I rarely buy wood my costs aren't so hard to cover, mainly time, power and any new tools. I would love to be able to do craft fairs but having seen my sister doing them for the last ten years I have come to believe that they are not the best way to make a living.

Pete

 

[Mark Hancock]

It's interesting this topic should appear at this time after my recent post.

I know of a number of makers (not all turners) who do make their living from craft fairs. They do this by knowing the market and producing appropriate work for it.

The one that always comes to mind is a jeweller who can produce the most exquisite work but to make a living and survive makes what sells ie items under £20. To achieve this he uses a production line processs and does a craft fair virtually ever weekend of the year. He chooses to do this because of the quality of life he has now is far better than the quantity of life he had in 'paid' employment with the BBC. To me it is such a great shame that his quality work is rarely seen but I understand his situation and choice because of the vast number of jewellers about and so the competition he would face in that market. For the turner the situation is different because woodturning as opposed to jewelry is viewed by the public in a different way ie turning is not valued as anything other than as functional craftware. It was this issue I was trying to comment on in my original post.

With craft fairs you have to bear in mind that the public generally treat them as events which are one step up from trader markets with their bought in / wholesale goods. They expect to get a bargain. Ocassionally you'll get one or more good sales but there is no reason as to why apart from the right customer at the right time. Never expect to get the same result if attending the same event the following year. There is usually no pattern to the sales volume. I say this after doing 10 years of such events (I've now given up on them as I don't wish to do production turning). After all if there was any such predictability to them there would be an awful lot of wealthy craftspeople about and I must admit I don't know of any

Slightly off topic but following on from this I do know of an awful lot of makers who have left the rat race of 'paid' employment, like myself, for this life of uncertainty, who don't regret the decision at all because of the benefits of this change of life style.

 

[Bob Chapman]

Never expect to get the same result if attending the same event the following year. There is usually no pattern to the sales volume. I say this after doing 10 years of such events (I've now given up on them as I don't wish to do production turning).

Absolutely right Mark. Your comment about production turning struck a chord with me. I started craft fairs to get rid of the stuff I'd accumulated while making the things I wanted to make. Problem is you need a range of things for a craft fair, so I spent some time filling the gaps with cheaper items I'd never have made in the normal course of things.

Then comes the fair and, good or bad, you never sell everything. So, what do you do with what's left? Another craft fair of course! But... you need to make some more bits to fill the gaps left by the first fair...and so it goes on...and on...and hey presto you're a production turner!

I found the fairs were driving me rather than vice versa. The only way to stop is to accept that you'll be left with bits that you might never sell, but at least you don't have to make any more of them and can get back to what interested you in the first place.

Bob

 

[Anonymous]

Bob, you're spot on!

Thanks for putting words to my feelings :wink:

 

[Bodrighy]

I have nothing but admiration for anyone who turns out more than haalf a dozen of anu one thing. I found it bad enough turning a load of keyrings, not exactly skilled production work but I soon got bored.

Pete