Last Sunday was our first ever experience at hosting a Market Stall at the annual Christmas Market and French Market hosted by Food Rocks. We have to say that overall it was great fun, went without a hitch, and afterwards we were thoroughly pooped!
A lot of time was spent preparing for this day. Once we decided to go for it, we had to order stock, build our display stands, spend what felt like an eternity, folding, stuffing and sealing our cards and packs; and produce a comprehensive but simple system of keeping track of sales and payments.
Lessons learned along the way:
- Try to ensure we have a white gazebo. The one we were supplied with was bright pink, which changed the colour of all the artwork at the back of the display.
- We were given a handy tip from experienced stallholders, and in future will be taking some cardboard or carpet to walk on (to stop our feet from getting so cold).
- Good lighting is essential to show off the work which is out of reach.
- Take plenty of ropes, bungees, cable-ties etc. We had slight issues attaching our banner on Sunday, and it dipped slightly in the centre. We certainly would have benefited from packing a few more!
In order to follow Covid 19 guidelines, we are adapting our ideal layout for the stand, to ensure that there is a distance between ourselves and the customer. Once normality resumes, we will be able to utilise the space more efficiently by having a stall that people can walk into, rather than being restricted to viewing from behind a table.
What next?
This weekend we are going to be starting our evening market stall at Leonardslee Illuminated, which is now sold-out for 4 consecutive weekends. We hope this will be a perfect environment to gain some spontaneous Christmas gift purchases. The market is set to be held under a marquee, and we are bringing a lighting rig – so this should improve visibility for the customer, and we know that there will be a degree of guaranteed footfall – Tier restrictions permitting.
