Tips and Advice for traders at Festivals
I am very new to trading at festivals (I now have 2 small festivals under my belt, with a larger one coming up in 3 weeks time!) but I have been trading at various sized events for 4 years now.
Mark and I decided to take the plunge this year and step our trading up a notch, particularly after his contract on his job ended in May and after applying for new jobs and getting interviews he decided it wasn't the life he wanted, so never went!
I have traded at many different events over the years so I have a number of display items already, but after completing my first two festivals I am already seeing room for improvements. I think it very much depends on what you sell, as to how and what you display, we sell my own handmade jewellery and Marks art.
Having traded at Bude Farmers Market for 3 years which is probably my most testing event as we were often pounded by what ever the North Cornish Coast wanted to throw at us - wind that you wouldn't believe, thunderstorms and even snow during the Christmas market! I am well used to a bit of wind and therefore my display has been adapted, but I still have room for improvements there too.
I am no expert on what you need to bring and do to get ready for a festival, but I am hoping I can give a few rookeys a bit of an idea, off the back of my experience so far. I reccommend you have a spot in your garage where you can store everything you need, so it can be picked up and taken to the next one, without having to scour your house for it, so have spare saucepans etc (charity shops are great for picking up extra stuff). Its a bit long winded but I hope the following will get you started.
The main list of stuff to bring is:
A strong gazeebo or marquee. I have a fairly good gazeebo, its proved to be reasonably strong, its a 3m x 3m white pop up gazebo, which lets in lots of light, showing my jewellery off to its best (I used to use cheap green garden gazeebo's as Mark assumed we wouldn't be able to keep a white one clean, when I finally was able to convince him I NEEDED a white one, my sales doubled!! My only disappointment with this one, now that I am doing festivals is that it does not have zip up sides to secure your stuff at night, so when I do get another one (maybe next year when I plan to do LOADs more festivals) I will get one that does. Easy gazeebos are the only reasonably priced company I have been able to find and having friends who have them, I know they are really good quality with good strong legs. I also reccommend weights, we use black bags which have two sections to fill with sand, ours are half filled with sand and then I have 2 litre bottles which I can fill with water when I get there. And I also think you should take some extra straps and pegs dont rely on the gazeebos guy ropes, we have heavy duty straps which you can tighten and big strong pegs, which go on all four corners of the gazeebo. Trust me you will sleep much better if you know your gazebo is going nowhere!!
Tablesneed to be good strong ones, we have a 5ft and a 4ft, folding tables I bought off Amazon, we have started bringing an additional little table I found in my Dad's shed, which I will change eventually, with these tables we create a U. Table cloths are a must, a table with out a cloth looks nasty. I got fed up with my cloths constantly blowing up onto the table, then taking my jewellery with it when it went back, so I labouriosly sewed curtain weights into the bottom of my cloths, now I dont worry about them at all!
As for the rest of your display that really depends on what you sell, so I will have to leave that up to you, just make sure it is all really stable, cant be knocked over or blown away, I used to trade next door to a couple of ladies who had such a terrible day once at Bude because all their stock was light, it just kept blowing over, so if you do sell light things, think of a way they wont keep falling off the table, remember festivals can be very muddy places and it wont be long before your stock is ruined!
Our set up, just before the festival at Farmfest started
You want everyone to know who you are, so a sign is really important. We actually have a couple at the moment and I am going to get a third soon too. People look at different things and different places, so they might miss your sign. I have one that is attached to the table which Mark painted, I also have my old shop sign which we hang on the inside of the gazebo, my new one will go along the front of the gazebo so that it can be seen from the other side of a field. You can also use A frames, flags, pull up banners etc there is so much on the market. Think about what suits you best, we used to have a sign that we got printed from Vistaprint which was fine, but it became more formal when Mark started coming out with me more with his work, now we have his painted one, it is much more apt and he is designing the long new one too. Vistaprint also do a great range of Business cards, lots of people wont buy on the day, but will take your card and buy later, so have a good supply to give away, I also put one in every bag for future second sales.
Water proof covers are also handy to have, I have my old gazeebos sides and a couple of old shower curtains. If the heavens do open, your gazeebo will only take so much before it is soaked thru and it starts to drip, so you are gonna want to cover your stuff up, you can get clear plastic sheets, but I use what I have got and to be honest the only people that are going to come in to your gazeebo are the ones that need shelter, dont miss a sales opportunity tho, get chatting with them and uncover a bit for them to look at.
At the last two festivals we have attended, we packed up at 10pm as there wasn't anyone about to sell to, but our third event is bigger, so we reakon we will trade later here, so lights are ,so far I have just had a couple of strings of solar lanterns/ fairy lights and 4 battery spotlights and if we really needed it we also had a solar torch (which we just used in the tent), these were enough for us to pack up in but not really trade. Electric can be expensive if you want the festival organisers to supply it, so we are looking at different options (which I will need to update you on later) a fellow trader was using a car battery with a convertor on it, so they had plug sockets in which to have a couple of house lamps, we will look in to that.
Chairs are a must have. I dont like sitting and serving my customers- bit rude, so I stand up alot, but you wont be able to do that from 9am till 3am, you will need to sit down sometimes and make a point of trying to when you are eating, otherwise you will end up with belly ache. We have a couple of these fabric folding chairs which are comfy and a hard one which Mark sits on when he's painting, I would like to get a high folding stool too, so that I can just perch on it when I am making stuff, that way I'm not lower than the tables.
Dont forget your float. If you do smaller events you probably have worked out the size of float you need everytime, I'd say for a festival at least double it, then you wont run out. Price everything so it is rounded up, everything on my stand is either in pounds or 50p's this means I only need tenners, lots of fivers, pound coins and 50p's, so no coppers etc, makes life loads easier! As far as your sales go, in my experience so far I am taking on average more or less what I would take at a big agricultural show for instance or on a good day at Bude market, with a footfall of about 5-8000 people at a festival. Even tho I can take the same at a one day event as to what I have taken at a 2 day festival, I still believe they are worth doing, the experience is great, you get to reach a far greater audience with your work and if it does go a bit quiet you can pack up early and enjoy a few bands yourself, but I wouldn't reccommend staying up all night with the other revellers, still get an early night, because you have to do it all again the next day!! You might also want to think about having a way of taking cards, I have Cardsave linked to my website, which also means I can take cards via my smart phone.
If you can create some interest to your stand. As I have mentioned at our last festival Mark painted a picture of the Green man whilst there and this had people coming back to watch the progress of his work and I am always making a bit too.
So thats the stand, what about everything else you need!
We bought a 4 man tent from Halfords, they were doing a deal on a tent with two bedrooms and a living area, 2 blow up mattresses and 4 sleeping bags for £60! Bargain, its basic but it has done the trick. You will need a pump to blow your mattress up, as Mark found after trying to blow it up with his own puff and having to admit defeat and find someone who would lend him one!! Dont forget your pillows and other bedding. We went for a 4 man even tho its only been the two of us, this meant we could use the second bedroom to store all our stuff in.
We were lucky enough to be able to have our car behind us too, which meant not only could we lock our stock in it over night (we left the display items in the gazeebo at night but we didnt want our stock to stay incase it was knicked or damadged due to the weather and damp) we could also keep our clothes in there too, as we found they got a bit damp over night, we then put all our bedding in there too during the day, just incase of any flooding issues etc.
Food can be very expensive at festivals and although it is nice to treat yourself to a bit of what is on offer, to feed upto 2 or 4 people over 4 days, will eek into your profits alot! We took a single gas cooking stove so we could cook our own stuff, with this you will also need saucepans, stirring impliments, plates, bowls, cuttelry, (we used plastic picnic stuff) tin opener, bottle opener, cups, kettle, extra gas. We have (amazingly) had fab weather so far, which meant any fresh food would of quickly gone off, so we survived on a great diet of tinned food, curries etc and dried food such as cous cous, rice, pasta, we also had tinned fruit, plenty of tea and coffee for Mark and Squash for me (we didn't die from drinking the water on site!). We had plenty of biscuits and other nibbly stuff too, you dont necessarily get to eat at the right times! we also took a box of wine, but we are not big drinkers, so didnt have much.
The toilets at festivals are well known for being pretty mingin!! My advice is, take a bucket!! You can time it in the mornings, to go when they have just been cleaned and emptied, but the evenings (and first thing in the morning) are grim and dark!! And dont forget your own toilet roll dont rely on there being a supply (like I did!) people will take them out and keep them for them selves!
Washing facilities are few and far between. Or if your lucky there might be showers. We went to Tiverton Balloon festival which is in a school, so we had use of the sports hall showers. Not for the shy as you may be joined by another! Farmfest apparently had a shower, but I never found it, I suspect it was just a hose - cold! I took a washing up bowl this meant I could wash up the dishes (dont forget your washing up liquid and scourer) and also have a strip wash in the privacy of our second bedroom in the tent.
So that brings me onto, how you get there. We have a big estate car to get ALL this stuff to the site and I would reccommend it! However next year we are going to upgrade our sleeping quarters (as we plan to do loads more festivals - camping is not really for me!) to a camper van of some description (watch this space). I do reccommend you make sure you can keep your stand, tent and car all in one place and I would say you should have them in that order, it worked best for us, and as I did see a young couple up to no good behind someone elses pitch, it would mean they wouldn't be right by your head when you are trying to get some sleep!!
And dont forget to be insured, Public liability insurance is available thru lots of suppliers, we use The National Market Traders Federation, which is reasonable. You will need to prove you have insurance to the organisers and you will also need to do a risk assessment.
My advice when choosing your festivals that you want to attend, make a big list/ spreadsheet (theres hundreds) work out what you can afford - festivals vary in price anything from £100 - £1000, take into concideration travel, footfall, the type of people that are going (young festivals can make for a minging experience as far as the toilets go!) what you are selling and the dates and come up with a short list, you wont get in to them all, so have several options for each weekend, email the organisers and ask for an application. In my experience they are a nice bunch and will do their best to answer any of your questions.
That leaves me to say good luck. I am new to it, but I am already loving it and will be attending loads more events. Be friendly to everyone they are all your customers, they dont want to know how tired you are!! And enjoy every minute of it!!
To find out how our two festivals were, please read my other blogs - Farmfest and Tiverton Balloon Festival. And look out for my next one about Watchet at the end of August.
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