This is our first year doing a craft show. Here's an idea of what we have planned:

Our crafters are in the cafeteria and gymnasium. I've limited the number of direct sales reps I'm allowing so the crafters don't get upset (you'd be surprised how finicky these people can be!). I didn't want to mess with % so we are charging a flat $40 per table. I listed on www.craftlister.com and have recieved about 20 vendors in three weeks time.

Our holiday shop will be set up in the media center, so the kids can shop for thier families.

We are selling hotdogs, chips, sodas, and pizza out of the cafeteria's kitchen.

We are having families donate baked goods for a table as well which I think will do well as its just before Christmas.

Im very lucky to have a Father-in-law who happens to be Santa, so the kids will have photos with Santa for $3 (all profit and half the cost of the mall).

The response has been great, and I just started this project a month ago. We are using some of the money to benfit the Art class, which the craft vendors loved.

Hope this helps!

-Jill

The last poster makes an excellent point about one of the reasons her craft show does so well is that it is established. People that attend craft shows will often go to the same ones year after year and if you have yours dated the same weekend as a more popular one you'll have trouble getting the crafters AND the crowd.

Our old school district has a popular yearly craft show that people would mark on their calendar to attend. Besides filling up most of the school with handmade crafts they also had a santa shop for the school kids, direct sales vendors, food in the cafeteria, and school fundraisers in the cafeteria too. Upstairs they had crafts geared more for kids, like handmade toys and some simple games that young children could play for a quarter. After we moved, I went back two years in a row, and we moved over an hour away! As you can see, I love craft shows and don't want to discourage anyone from doing one but I would not count on it as anything but a minor fundraiser.

There are tons of lists online for crafters looking for new craft fairs. They even write reviews on some. You should list on those to find people.

Keep in mind that crafters need about 6 months to get thier stock together. I really like the craft mall style where the PTA/PTO has cashiers who take care of payments and the crafters can come and go. This is a great way to attract hobbyists who wouldn't do it otherwise.

Be sure to use the old stand by of sending out flyers. You never know what people are doing in their basements. I do candles and jewelry. My neighbors do blown glass. I know 10 good crafters (people who sell their items) within 2 miles of our school and obviously I don't know everyone.

I really recommend that a spring event be right before mother's day and let the kids shop too. Christmas does seem to be the best, though. Ours isn't intended to be a fundraiser and we still make about $1200. We'd probably bring in a lot more if we were serious.

This will be our 11th year, so it's very established with the community and the crafters.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

[ 09-28-2004, 10:42 PM: Message edited by: nonsequitur ]

I organized one of these years ago when my oldest childs school was building a kids dream playground. I did what one of the other posters suggested and went to several early fall craft fairs and personally invited the crafters and direct sales people I liked to participate. I had a flier made up ahead of time with the date that our fair was going to be so I could hand that to them and I took info from them for follow up.

I also included direct sales people but that can be tricky if you have several people in your school that all do the same thing - like Longaberger baskets or whatever. If you do direct sales, you'll also want to pick a one day delivery day that suits all of them or have them deliver to the customers directly.

I believe there are a lot better fundraisers out there if you want to raise money quickly. I would go with a cookie dough, or pizza or even a bake sale on election day if you have polls at your school. I've raised a few hundred dollars doing that and it's a lot easier!

Thanks for the feedback. Going to craft fairs right now & hnading our flyers is a great idea. As a crafter I have had that done to me as well.

Thanks!

If you are going to be looking for the Spring, I'd suggest you go to craft fairs & holiday gift fairs in your area and hand out fliers for your event. Walk around see which booths you like and hand them a flier, tell them what you'll be doing and hopefully they will call you to book a space.

My friend has a business and we do local holiday shows and people hand us fliers for the spring and thats how we book our spring dates.