Selling at Renaissance Faires

[wildrose]

LOL Ferret, that's funny!

My thoughts on the original question (and by the way, UKRay, you come up with good ones!): I guess Ren.Faires are in their way alot like other festivals of any time period: you have to go by the regs that the organizers put in place. If you want to vend, you have to be willing to do that. BUT, you also may have to be willing to "look the other way" if the organizers decide to let it slip and let in tshirt vendors and the like (i.e. folks who surely are NOT making their own wares)

[hivemind]

I've been to quite a few faires, and have inquired at several about becoming a vendor. This is a link to my "local" faire: http://sterlingfestival.com/

Here's a link to their vendor requirements: http://sterlingfestival.com/ArtisanInfo/ta...Default.aspx#A2

It looks pretty lucrative to me, provided you can come up with enough stock to cover all seven weekends. This place has at least a half-dozen leather vendors of various flavors:

One sells MASSIVELY overpriced stuff (think $2000 sleeveless coats and $1200 sleeveless jerkins) mostly made of garment leather on a machine.

Another sells handmade waterformed and airbrushed masks, which range from a simple Lone Ranger mask to incredibly ornate headpieces that range from $25 to many hundreds of dollars.

Another is two guys who do really nice tooling/stamping on belts and small waterformed pouches. I like them, and they have reasonable prices. A handtooled belt with a solid brass buckle will run you between $50 and $90 if I recall correctly. I bought a very nice pouch, basketweave stamp with cobbled edges, for $42 a few weeks ago.

There's a place that sells boots ranging from $500 to $2000.

And a place that seems to exist only to see how skimpy of leather halter tops they can get women to try on.

I'm going back there on Sunday with the wife and some friends, I'll see if I can remember to snap you a bunch of photos.

[hivemind]

So I took a few pics for you. I missed the boot sellers, and also forgot about the mask guy. But I got three other places for you to check out.

Edited August 19, 2008 by hivemind

[hivemind]

[wildrose]

Ever seen Larry and Leenie's Lusty Leather? Great workmanship and fun folks. I was vending next to them at NJRK one year.

[UKRay]

Sorry Wildrose - Larry and Leenie went right over my head! - maybe they haven't made it to the UK yet? Who are they?

That was really quite a photographic expedition, Hivemind. I am so impressed! it has really given me a taste for the sort of leatherwork on sale at these events. Many thanks.

Those butterfly hair barrettes are absolutely beautiful. It must take hours to stain 'em. The plain belts also looked good and were easy to see and buy.

The pictures did throw up a few questions though... (okay, 'no surprise there', I can hear you say). My sole intention here is to find the best way to display and sell my own goods and I find it helps me to critique other displays. I'm not saying I could do any better but I need to understand what ought to be changed to make the goods look more attractive before I build my own displays. I do try to be objective and look for the best side of things but ultimately I want to do the job better and sell more stuff.

For those who may be interested, my observations follow:

I definitely felt that a lot of time and care had been spent making the stuff on display. It looked well designed and well finished but much of it didn't seem to be displayed particularly well.

Leaving aside the garment rails - I guess there is only so much you can do with a coat hanger - the hanging belt displays were good and colorful but a bit too 'busy' for me and the wide belts on the rough looking shelf definitely underwhelmed me. Such a shame as the belts looked nicely colored and well put together and I really liked that antler fastening idea.

The wristbands/bracelts/cuffs on the wooden shelves looked untidy and didn't make me want to get closer and check 'em out. IMHO I felt the lovely pointy bottomed bags and other nice looking bits were let down by the sagging green cloth and a lack of presentation.

I thought the pouches looked like they had been made, quickly, for the event and displayed without any thought to asthetics.

On the plus side, the overall quality of the workmanship looked really excellent and some of the designs were outstanding. Once again the bar has been raised and I'm just hoping I can compete. Right now I'm losing faith in my ability to jump high enough...

What did others think of the displays in the pictures? What could you change in order to to sell more stuff?

[wildrose]

http://www.lustyleather.com/Our_Shop.html is a link to Larry and Leenie's site, with a pic of their set up at the top corner. I wish they had more pics, but I didn't surf the site much, so they might. I was next to these folks for a season at the New Jersey Renaissance Kingdom, and have seen them at several other events. They are really terrific, and their workmanship isn't bad either!

BTW, on the other thread, when you were talking credit card processing, I forgot to mention I used First Data and Discover Merchant Services, and they were pretty good. It just was that over time I had to cut costs, and moving here I've not established an account yet.

[Windy]

What did others think of the displays in the pictures? What could you change in order to to sell more stuff?

I can tell you that I never pay attention to what

the product is setting on. I made a beautiful set

of display stands for a potter a couple of years

ago. They really set her booth off , which led me

to wonder why others set there stuff on concrete

blocks holding 2x10 shelves. Well just a year later

I was at a wood working show. As I walked around

looking at things my girlfriend pointed out the display

stands holding the stuff. Much to my chagrin I had

not noticed even though they were made of wood

and darn nice looking. I discovered that day that I

only notice the display table/case if the work is of

no interest to me. In other words the only one who

sees your table is the one who is not looking at your

work. While I am here giving my most humble opinion

I would also like to say that I for one disagree with

whomever it was who said you can not sell high

priced items at a small venue. I can tell you when

I see something I like, I do not say "oh no I can

not buy that here cause this is a flea market and

I just can not spend five hundred bucks at a flea

market" . What kind of logic is that. Mercy sakes

if someone sees something they like they will buy

it if they can afford it. Once again this is my most

humble opinion. If you do top quality work , no one

will care if you set it on a ugly table or sell it at a

flea market.

WINDY

[UKRay]

If you do top quality work , no one

will care if you set it on a ugly table or sell it at a

flea market.

WINDY

I can't help but agree with you about top end leathergoods Windy, and I respect your wide knowledge of display building but, as I am fully aware, my work doesn't fall into the same class as some of our highly esteemed fellow posters. My regular production stuff simply couldn't be compared with the high end work we see here so frequently - but that doesn't mean I don't think it is sellable - more importantly, I want it to have every chance possible of catching a buyer's eye. Frankly, I don't care if they come over to look at the way the display was built or to check out the fabric I've used to cover my table as long as they buy something!

If I took your advice I feel I could be putting myself at a disadvantage - which, IMHO, is not a good position to sell from. How do other people feel about this?

[ArtS]

WOW! How long does it take to put together an inventory like that?

I'd be dead before I could make all that! I am very impressed.

ArtS