Strange Folk Wrapup: The Good

I'm going to break the wrap up from Strange Folk into 2 parts. The good and the not-so good. Today will just be my observations about the weekend so I will probably ramble on a bit. There were definitely some things that I learned from this experience and that's what I'll talk about tomorrow. I'm certainly no expert on shows as I've only been doing them part time for a few years. I do like to share what I learn here so that I don't forget it and so that others can learn from what I do both right and wrong.

I really never got a good shot of the whole booth display. I took pictures both mornings after I set up but the sun was always either too bright or not bright enough. This is from the first morning. When I got there I was in a total tizzy because I couldn't figure out how I was going to configure my booth to fit both quilt racks. About 30 minutes into set up I looked up and saw the other vendors setting up facing outwards not inwards into the tent. Oops. No wonder they were all looking at me like I was overreacting.

This is why I always get there well over an hour before it starts, with plenty of time to get things set up right. So I turned my table around and placed the racks outside of the tent in such a way to draw people in with the bamboo rug as a nice balance. I liked this overall configuration. I sat my stool next to the table not behind it, so that I could come out and talk to people and hold the mirror for them. I was never really happy with my table displays but I will talk about that tomorrow.


I had the sweetest booth neighbors I've ever had in every sense of the word. Sarah and her mom from The Hot Cookie were such a treat to hang out with for the weekend. When I needed a pick me up a great trade was made, cookies for a headband, you can't beat that. Her cookies really are amazing and she sells them on Etsy here. Mike's favorite was the Lemon Tarragon Sables and mine was the chocolate with oats. They each bought a scarf from me and wore them proudly sending customers my way.

Kai was such a great helper this weekend. This was my first show that I had any help since my first one that I did with friends. It made such a huge difference. If you have an agreeable friend, spouse, or teenager I highly recommend it. He took his responsibilities very seriously. His main job was to make sure that no scarves were touching the ground since we were outside and there was a great deal of mud after all the rain. He restocked after things sold and made sure the display was in place. He was also a great help during what he called the Cabbage Patch Kid moments when 4 or more women were in the booth in a frenzy. These were the good times that customers were trying everything on, throwing things to each other, and "fighting" over scarves.

It was so nice to be able to walk away occasionally and not worry about things walking away from the booth. He gave me this update when I came back from one bathroom break. "I explained about the scarflettes to the lady and she liked that one but she didn't think it would match her coat." For some reason I found this exchange cute. He took lots of pictures with his new camera and we traded for some art with one of the vendors nearby.

Staying at the hotel on Saturday night was a good decision even if their wi-fi wasn't working and Mike spent most of the evening complaining. Mike hung out with his brother and Brian most of the time that he was there. He did give me one good suggestion. I was complaining that things weren't moving on Sunday morning and he told me to get more things on the racks. I had decided to just put out $15 scarves on Sunday and a few $30 ones on the table since the lower end was what was moving on Saturday. I had kept it nice and neat but they were beginning to look bare which was not drawing people in as much. Once I put more out I got lots more interest as they was more selection to choose from.

He also entertained some people with his commentary. At one point before he left on Sunday he cracked up a woman who overheard him say that part of his soul had just died from boredom. Luckily she was a fellow vendor and he didn't offend a customer with his sarcasm.

I don't know if I will ever be able to get Mike to come back but I do think that Kai would help again with the proper amount of incentive, i.e. bribery. By the time he is too old/cool to spend the weekend hanging out with his aunt, Ani should be old enough to make a good helper. She and her Dad, Gandolf the Grateful Dead, came out on Saturday and had a good time despite the rain.

Overall it was a successful and fun event. Strange Folk really is my target audience in every sense of the word. The free spirits get me and my aesthetic and I love being a part of it all. The other vendors are such amazing artists and with the music and other activities I always come away so inspired. I also came away with a box of yarn from the Upcycle Exchange and nothing beats free yarn.

Sold!

This post may or may not be of much interest to anyone but myself but one of the purposes of this blog if a place for me to process my thoughts about my little business. Yesterday I was analyzing my sold listings to see what if anything I could gleam from what has been successful in my shop. What got me thinking was a post I saw from the Indie CEO about how we spend our advertising dollars. She talked about knowing who are customers are and figuring out different ways to target them. She also gave some specific ideas for particular crafters. Here are her thoughts on knitters:

• Handmade hats, crochet, knitted, felted-cold climates, cold weather sports gatherings, colleges/universities.

This got me thinking about who my target customer is and made me want to see exactly where my sales have come from and what I have sold the most. I can say with certainty that the 2 scarves I have pictured here are my most popular items. The sari silk at the top I have sold 4 times on-line and have sold at least that many at craft shows. The green one has sold twice on-line and has sold at every craft show I've ever done. I'm so sad that Hobby Lobby discontinued this yarn, I bought it out in green and several other colors when it was on clearance. You can tell from the pictures that they are from early on in my business. I used to use props in all of my pictures. I still like the way they look but it is so time consuming and I realized that I needed more consistency in my shop.
So here is what I learned from my research. From my 79 on-line sales I have sold to 26 states, 4 sales to Canada, and 1 to the UK. Of these 17 were from what I consider warm weather states (FL, CA, Hawaii, TX, AZ). I have had 13 sales to MO, the most of any state, which makes sense because a number of those were to people that I knew or had been referred to me. The others were a mix. Here are the top places: CA-7, FL-4, IL-4, MS-4, NY-4, TX-4, WA-4, and Canada-4.

I don't know exactly what this information tells me. I have had a string of sales from CA and FL which got me thinking that it might be because fewer people knit or no someone who knits in the warmer climate areas. It does still get cool in these areas so I thought about trying to target some of my fashion scarves in these areas. But I know that people in Canada and colder states are going to have more appreciation for my work so if I'm going to do any on-line advertising it should probably be directed there.

In terms of inventory online I've sold 43 scarves, 12 scarflettes, 8 headbands, 9 wristcuffs, 2 barrettes, 1 bridal party jewelry set, and 1 necklace on-line. Obviously I need to stick with what works and not muddy up my shop. I'm going to continue to list interesting scarves and scarflettes. I will continue to make wristcuffs and headbands to list as well. I'm not going to showcase them as much and I don't think I'm going to bother to bring the headbands to my shows. The necklaces and barrettes were not received so well and will be phased out.

I will hopefully find a way to use this information. For now it's just kind of my rambling thoughts. If you have any thoughts on this research please share.

Craft show Ideas

Thanks everyone for all you sweet words in my last post. I'm doing what I need to do to get balanced again. I know it seems early but I am starting to plan for next Fall's show season which gives me something to not only work towards but look forward to. As I've said before I did 3 shows last year and I did a post with my thoughts right after the season was over. I would like to raise that to 5 shows this year. It is not easy deciding which shows are worth your time but let me tell you the thought process I go through when considering a show.

For me it is all about Fall. Spring and summer shows are not worth the time and energy for me. Knitting is inherently a Fall/Winter craft. On this note I really prefer indoor shows. I have one outdoor festival that is the exception but I choose to do it in the covered pavilion. I don't want to have to deal with setting up a tent and keeping my scarves dry and clean outdoors. There is a big advantage to setting up in a tent if you can find a cheap one like my sister in law, Gray Eyed Scorpio, did as you can spread out and can control the display more. She found a very reasonable tent on Craigslist that is supposed to be easy to open although she still needed her husband the first time. Here was her booth at last years Strange Folk Festival in all of its glory.

Weather can be much more of a factor with outdoor shows and if you are set up next to a food vendor you may come away with inventory stinking of BBQ, yes it happened to me once. I did a street show with a few friends just to get a feel for it 2 years ago and I decided that wasn't my scene pretty quickly. These outdoor street events often have entertainment that you are competing with not to mention the resellers peddling their Avon and non-handmade items. Many of the festival goers are there with their kids to enjoy the day and aren't thinking about shopping for handmade.

Another thing to consider when choosing a show is whether it is juried or not. Personally I prefer juried shows since it keeps the resellers out but there is the stress factor of waiting to see if you got in. I am not in the league to consider the high end art shows but if you are than you need to plan pretty far in advance and be willing to put out some bucks in fees. The most I've ever paid for a booth fee is $90 but I have heard of shows that cost in the hundreds of dollars that attract a high end clientele. Shows that have been around along time and have a built in clientele are worth the investment in most cases. You should consider how long they have been doing the event and if possible find out how many attended the year before. I've never done an event that charged attendees to enter but I've been told they bring out people really ready to shop.

The show that I did for $90 was the Lindbergh show which is the largest one in the St. Louis area. It is a more traditional show held in a sprawling High School and draws up to 10,000 a year. I did not make quite as much last year as I had hoped there but I am doing it again this year as it was a good way to connect with a different audience. I got at least one large sale after the fact from it on-line by passing out my cards. It was for 2 days which I really prefer since I feel that if I'm going to devote a weekend to a show I'd rather have it be the whole weekend. You may feel the opposite and there are any number of one day events at schools and churchs with booth fees under $50 that you can use to get your feet wet. I plan on doing one of these in my local area this year so that people at work and friends can come without having to travel too far.

I'm lucky that in my area there are several groups that promote very good indie shows. These events bring out a younger crowd with more dispensable income, always a plus. My scarves/scarflettes have been received well by this market and I consider them my target at this point. It can be harder to find these events if you haven't done them before but you can look into your local craft mafia as they are often behind many of these shows. Indie Craft Shows is a directory of national indie events. It doesn't have any of the ones listed here in MO that I know of, but it is a place to start.

Missouri has a site called MissouriArtsAndCrafts with a list of events and I'm sure your state probably has something similar. It is not complete and many event planners may not have started submitting their Fall shows for this year yet. I will sometimes go back to the year before and see what was offered and then do a google search to see if I can find any info on something if it sounds interesting.

I just discovered a new site called Craft Lister with over 50,000 events listed across the country. You can sign up for free but to access all the details and reviews of the shows it costs a fee. It is $20 for 2 months which should be all the time you would need. You can also get some time for free by giving reviews or referring people. If you are interested please let me know and I will send you an e-mail and if you sign up for the free account I get 14 days of full service for free!

Another comprehensive site is Festival Network Online. You can search events for free here but to get full details and other services it costs $49 a year. This is more than I can justify paying but I do use it to search and then I google events that sound interesting to see if I can find more details.

The Artsy Crafter is a favorite blog of mine that focuses on art and craft shows by an artist that has many years in the circuit to share. If you are just getting started it is good to attend some shows first to get a feel for it and talk to some vendors to get their ideas. Some people will be open to helping while others might be more reserved, especially if you are in the same category. I know there is at least one other knitter in the St. Louis area that I see around and consider my "competition" for shows. Would I share all of my secrets with her, probably not, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys might have about shows.

Entrecard Ads

I haven't been dropping as much this week since my home modem is so much slower than my work one. By not as much that means I've been averaging 100 a day rather than the 300 I usually get during my lunch hour at work. I was explaining the dropping system to someone this week and they said that is sounded too much like work to them. For some reason I find the dropping process soothing and I enjoy checking in daily on so many of the crafty and other blogs I've discovered through entrecard.

I've found that most people get an average of 20 or so clicks by advertising on my blog whereas I seem to get fewer than that on other people's blogs. I am having someone make a new button for me to use on entrecard and possible Project wonderful ads since I know the one I have is not all that clickable. I am really not a graphics person at all and the person I had make my banner for me seems to be out of business. Today was a banner day since I had advertised on Art by Paul Baines and received almost 100 clicks from his blog, the most I've ever gotten from an ad. Top Cat Creations got almost the same number of clicks through to her blog, the most anyone's ever gotten from my widget. I try to advertise on at least 15 widgets a week. Here is the widgets I've got the most bang for my entrecard point bucks in the last month:

Widget shown on	# of clicks
Art By Paul Baines	95
Contrariwise Jewelry	61
Thyme2dream	58
Jenny Karlsson Design	43
my beautiful creations	20
Steam Powered Rings	14
Alteredevents	12

Let me know how your entrecard experience compares!