The Indie Craft Show Directory

There's no denying that selling at craft shows can take up a ton of time, and a fair amount of money too. Buying craft show gear can be a big investment, not to mention the cost for you to produce your wares. Recently we've seen a few folks asking "is it worth it?"

The answer to that quesiton varies wildly from person to person, but we'd love to hear what you think. What makes a craft show worth it to you? And when do you decide your time is better spent elsewhere?

You can leave your answer in a comment or send it to kelly@indiecraftshows.com

If you’re looking to restock your craft show essentials for spring, we’ve compiled all the products we’ve previously suggested into one easy-to-shop page. The store is powered by Amazon.com and we’ve scoured the site for some of the best items for craft shows. And best of all, most of the items featured have free shipping.

A small portion of the sales from the shop go towards our hosting costs and help us keep the site free. If you have any suggestions for items we should feature, leave them in the comments.

Shop Indie Craft Shows now!

As of this month, Indie Craft Shows has been up for five years! Sometimes it seems like just yesterday Dawn from Pop Culture Rehab and I set it up, other times it feels like a million years ago.

First, the TL;DR version: We’re 5! And we’ve updated our technology in preparation for building out the site into a full featured community for everyone who attends and organizes craft shows.

Now the long version:

There has been an ebb and flow to the site as Dawn and I have left jobs, started new jobs, been more involved with the craft show scene, taken time out to relax and reclaim our weekends, and otherwise lived our lives. It’s the same for everyone – I stopped doing shows for a while when I went to work at Etsy, and when I returned to the scene in late 2008 I was surprised how the “old guard” of craft fair veterans had given way to a new group. Of course some of the old guard is still around, I still run into Becky from Sweetie Pie Press at about half the events I attend. But just like my own life has changed a lot over the last 5 years, so has the craft show landscape.

On the technical side of things, Indie Craft Shows is on its fourthversion. While there are incremental changes with each release, one thing we haven’t managed to find time for is implementing totally new features. I’m excited to say that finally, after years of waiting, I’m finally carving out some time to make the site into what I think the crafting community really needs: a hub for all things craft-show related.

I have a habit of saying “we,” because this site wouldn’t be possible without the hundreds of people who contribute to it. Even when I haven’t checked up on it for months at a time, you guys keep the site flowing with new listings. But on the tech side, it’s really just “me.” Indie Craft Shows is a one-woman tech team. The latest version is written in Ruby on Rails and hosted by the fine folks at Heroku.

One of the challenges in running a site like this is making sure it still pays its own bills while keeping it a free resource. As we push into spring we’ll be rolling out some paid features and add-ons, but the directory will always remain a free service at its core. We’ve also moved to a much more mature system for advertising, which lets you control how much you want to pay for visibility, etc. We’re still working out the back end of it, but in the mean time email ads@indiecraftshows.com if you want to snag one of our sexy sidebar ads.

Thanks for sticking with us, I hope the next 5 years are as successful as the first!

If you’ve been paying close attention you may have noticed a few small changes to the blog. They’re pretty minor, but will hopefully make things a little easier to find/share.

First you’ll see a list of links at the bottom of every post for sharing around the web. Right now I’ve got it set up for email, twitter, Facebook, smub, digg, del.icio.us, reddit, stumbleupon, myspace, google, RSS, and printing (handy for those craft show checklists). That’s a pretty big laundry list, but if your favorite social network isn’t listed just tell us in the comments and I’ll add it.

Next up is the new category list on the right hand side. This should make it easier to follow some of our regular features such as Craft Show Horror Stories and DIY Displays.

It’s also come to my attention that our RSS feed wasn’t actually linked anywhere on the site, making it rather useless. You can now grab our RSS feed from the top-right of any blog post and add it to your favorite RSS/blog reader.

Lastly, if there are any site features or blog topics you’re dying for let me know. Particularly site improvements. I know there are lots of places it could use sprucing up, but I’m just a one person team these days so it’s sometimes hard to tell what needs doing. If there’s something you want to see on indiecraftshows.com let me know.

We’ve just launched some new features that should make Indie Craft Shows even more useful! Starting today you can now “bookmark” events. Look for the little bookmark star on the right hand of any event page.

You can see a list of all the events you’ve marked over on the My Events page. And if the event has an application deadline coming up we’ll show that too.

If you use a calendar application such as Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCal you can export your Indie Craft Shows Calendar and have them sync automatically! Just click the “export to…” link on the My Events page. Once they’re synced up any events you bookmark here will pop up in your calendar. Both event dates and application deadlines will appear in the calendar.

Lastly if you’ve marked an event you’ll get an email reminder right before the application deadline – so you don’t miss it. These email reminders are totally optional. If you’d rather not get them (say, if you’re not a vendor) just go to your profile settings and uncheck the application notification box.

There’s some other cool stuff in the works – including widgets for your blog telling people which shows you’ll be at – so stay tuned. And if you’re participating in a show that isn’t in our directory let the organizer know about us so they can post it here!

Our good friend and guest blogger Sara from Girls Can Tell has started offering small business consultation services! Sara built Girls Can Tell from the ground up, and her business is booming. Aside from being an experienced business owner she also built the teams program over at Etsy, pretty much from scratch! So if you’re looking for some help with marketing or building your business either online or off, Sara can help you.

Read more about her awesome new services over on the Girls Can Tell blog!

It’s been a busy week, and we snuck in a few site updates.
You can now add a flyer to your event listings, either a .gif or .jpg format, which people can download use on their websites, etc. Flyers should be at least 150 pixels wide. We’re working on adding support for .doc and .pdf files.
To add a flyer to an event you’ve already published, go to my events and click edit next to the event name. Scroll down the event form and choose a file to upload. Click save and you’re done.

You can also specify whether your show is juried or not and provide a deadline / link to an application. Many people already provide this in the event description, but now it will be easier to find.
There are also new flags for outdoor shows and fundraiser/benefit shows. These options will be added to advanced search early next week.

PS, did you know you can search by location? Just enter any address, city, state, or even country, and you’ll find any events within 50 miles.

Lastly, we’re looking for articles on show organization to post in our blog. If you’re a veteran of running craft shows, or even a first timer, email blog@indiecraftshows.com if you’d like to write an article about what you’ve learned.

Notice something different? We’ve updated our look and added some exciting new features to indiecraftshows.com!

We’ve been working hard to bring you new tools, here are some of the highlights:

Better international support. We want people across the globe to be able to use the site, which is why we now have enhanced international support. You can now specify your country in your profile and events, and searching works across state and country lines! So if you search for shows near Toronta, Canada, you’ll get back events in Buffalo too.

Edit your events. Misspell the URL for your event? Date change? No problem. You can now edit your events by clicking the “My Events” link at the top of the page when you log in.

Search for past events. The advanced search page now includes a checkbox to search for past events, perfect for when you want to leave a review on an event you attended.

RSS feed for new shows. You can plug our rss feed into your favorite RSS reader and hear about new events right as they’re added to the site.

Follow us on Twitter
Are you an avid Twitter user? Indie Craft Shows now has a twitter account you can follow for information about site updates, blog posts, new shows, and more. Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/indiecraftshows

Get on  our blog
If you’ve got some craft-show news you’d like us to blog about, or an article you’d like to write, let us know! We’re happy to post tips, tricks, calls for vendors, anything related shopping or selling at craft shows. Just send an email to blog@indiecraftshows.com

There’s more coming, so stay tuned!