By Michael Priest — festival vendor and small-business owner
Choosing the wrong event can cost a new vendor hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars. In this episode, Michael Priest explains how to research festivals, set realistic goals, evaluate whether an event fits your products, and narrow down your options before paying a nonrefundable booth fee.
Michael then walks through 10 questions every vendor should ask an event organizer, including attendance history, booth fees, marketing, venue surfaces, bathrooms, generators, parking, load-in procedures, vendor mix, and weather policies. He also explains why percentage-based booth fees are not always a bad deal and why a small church fair or parking-lot event may be a smarter first step than immediately jumping into a major festival.
In this episode:
- Setting sales or market-testing goals before choosing an event
- Finding festivals through Facebook groups, friends, and chambers of commerce
- Evaluating demographics, disposable income, and product fit
- The 10 questions to ask before paying a booth fee
- Flat-rate versus percentage-based event fees
- How to recognize a weak marketing plan
- Venue surfaces, bathrooms, electricity, parking, and load-in
- Handmade-only events versus flea-market-style vendor mixes
- Rain policies, refunds, and cancellations
- Why new vendors may benefit from starting small
Go deeper before you pay the booth fee
Use the Festival Geeks guide to choosing the right festival, use the 10 Questions to Ask an Event Organizer checklist, and learn how to spot fake craft fair and festival vendor scams.
New to vending? See the First-Time Vendor Roadmap to place this lesson in the complete step-by-step path from choosing an event through pricing, customer interactions, event-day preparation, and telling your story.