A DIY crafting station courtesy of the Ladies Fancywork Society
Gettin’ Crafty reviews the second annual Crafty Ballyhoo, organized by the Denver Handmade Alliance, and shares the Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts for shoppers. Read all about it, and remember, if you don’t have anything nice to say…
Sandy of Dig Under Rocks attended the Silver Lake Art Craft and Vintage show in Los Angeles, CA. The show runs every Saturday at Micheltorena Elementary School.
I had the opportunity to be a vendor at the Silver Lake Art, Craft & Vintage Show the last two Saturdays in May. This was my first show in a very long time and my first show with my Dig Under Rocks jewelry line. I was not prepared with supplies and I had not visited the show yet. I was planning to shop the show and then apply but I when I researched for info on their site, I found out there was a potential waiting list to vend so I applied. To my surprise, I was accepted to vend right away and had three days to prepare. I pulled together what I would need for the show and headed out early Saturday morning. As with most LA days.. I had beautiful weather for both shows.
Silver Lake is an LA neighborhood located east of Hollywood. There’s a great mix of creative people, shops, restaurants, and beautiful homes. The show definitely fit the vibe and taste of the neighborhood. There’s also great hills in this section of LA and the elementary school, where the show is held, is set just above Sunset Blvd., on Sunset & Micheltorena with a banner for the show on the corner.
I arrived just after 9am to set up my shop. There were vendors lining the perimeter of the open school yard and some filling in the center. This was Memorial Weekend so vendors and traffic were probably going to be light. My space was in the middle row, center. Traffic would walk the perimeter and may or may not come into the middle row or cut to the middle row miss the booths in the back. The following weekend I arrived a little earlier and a had space on the perimeter right next to the entrance, which was better.
There was a nice mix of vendors: paintings, ceramics, homemade soaps, jewelry, vintage clothing, redesigned vintage clothing, accessories, thrift shop items, old books & records, handmade home goods.. I would have liked to see more homemade sellers and a little less vintage. The show is fairly new and definitely new for this location so hopefully it will attract more local Etsians and traffic. My neighbors both weekends were very talented and had great booths… and everyone was so friendly and helpful.
The traffic was light both weekends and picked up between 12-2, which is when I made my sales. There were all types of shoppers with a good amount of young people in their 20s & 30s.. mostly shopping for vintage clothing. It was a fun surprise when Alice Cooper browsed my shop the second Saturday I was there.. I think he ended up making some vintage clothing purchases.
For your vending conveniences, there are bathrooms located in the school and are a quick and easy access from the selling area. My boyfriend was with me so we didn’t bring lunch.. he ran out to a near by taco stand. When you arrive to unload they let you pull your car in and to breakdown you can bring your car back in after 4pm. There’s also a small parking lot for vendors so you don’t have to worry about meter parking on the street. Also, there’s a coffee and snack stand in the middle set up by the organizers for vendors and shoppers.
Overall, I liked the show because I like the neighborhood, crowd and mix of vendors. I’d shop there even if I wasn’t looking to vend. However, I would like to see it grow as it becomes more permanent in the location and more handmade sellers. Traffic was only moderately busy at lunch time. For me, I may not have made as many sales as I’d like, I still found it important to display my jewelry, hand out cards and get a reaction from shoppers. I felt the shoppers like my pieces so I’d like to go back and see how the show picks up as we get more into summer. It was easy enough to travel to, set up and it’s relatively inexpensive for a 10×10 space so I’d definitely recommend it to local artists.
This review originally appeared on kellbot.com. If you’ve been to a show recently and want to write a review let us know by sending an email to blog@indiecraftshows.com!
Sara and I got back from Spring Bada-Bing late last night. All in all I’d say it was a good show! We’re a little exhausted, and things didn’t always go quite as smoothly as we’d planned, but we still had a good time and made some good sales.
We couldn’t have asked for a better organized show. First off, the venue was beautiful and perfect for an upscale craft show. Unloading in the morning was a breeze, there were plenty of volunteers who helped lug our stuff to our table. Tables were provided as part of the booth fee, along with two chairs, and it was nice not to have to worry about bringing them down with us.
There aren’t a lot of lunch options near the venue, Plant Zero, but the Richmond Craft Mafia organized an opt-in lunch for vendors. It was delicious, less than $10 for a sandwich/salad/drink, and delivered right to the booth. Not bad at all. This is the 4th year the craft mafia girls have put on the show, and it shows. If anything went wrong at the show I was totally unaware of it.
Attendance seemed a little lower than I was expecting, but I’m not sure how much of that is just my perception. It’s a nice big space and the walkways were pretty generous (way nicer than the alternative), so it takes a lot of people to really look full. The only downside of Plant Zero is that it doesn’t really have much built-in foot traffic since it’s tucked away on the south side, but there was a steady if light stream of customers. It seemed like the ratio of buyers to browsers was pretty high, a lot of the people who stopped by our table ended up buying something. I’m happy to say I don’t have any customer horror stories to report of terrible children or rude adults.
The million dollar question for any show is of course how much did you make versus the cost of the show. We did OK. Sara and I both had busy schedules leading up to the show so we weren’t quite as polished and prepared as we would have liked, and I think it affected sales a little. For us travelling from Philly and New York, it was a decent but not amazing show.
I’m getting pretty picky about my shows in my old age, and I’d definitely do Spring Bada-Bing again next year. But tie it into a mini-vacation in Richmond so I have a little more time to relax and don’t feel like I’m travelling down just for the show. And if you live close enough to Richmond you could do the show as a day trip it’s a no brainer, it’s totally worth the very reasonable booth fee.