Every fall, my town has a street fair that brings in hundreds of vendors and thousands of visitors. This happens to be the only cool thing my town does! It is called the Autumn Lights Festival, or ALF for short. This was the 22nd annual festival, and it all started because my town decided to get traffic lights put in the center of town many years ago (so strange, I know). Who would’ve thought all of this was in celebration of traffic lights. Last year, they said we had up to 20,000 people walk up and down the main street throughout the day! Anyway, this year I decided that I wanted to have a table at the festival and try my luck at selling some of my artwork that had been accumulating over the years! I was fortunate enough to get a table, so that’s how I spent my Saturday!

There were many things I had to do in preparation for this large event, it was a lot of work but I think it was all worth it. I had to spend hours pricing out all of my pieces, which is not an easy task. I asked some family, friends and professors in order to get a good idea of what was an appropriate asking price for each piece. It’s a difficult job because you definitely don’t want to under price your work, but you also need to account for the fact many people don’t understand all of the work and time that goes into a single piece, especially a piece of pottery. With the help of my Mom, I made up a bunch of business cards in order to promote myself. I also had a large banner made up at Staples that said “Art by Ashley Nicole” that way when people were walking past my table they knew what kind of business I was. On each of the bags I had small hand-written stickers  that way people didn’t forget who I was and would continue to promote me throughout the streets! I also had to consider how people were going to be walking up and down the street for hours, so I made sure to get bubble wrap in order to keep each piece safe during their travels.

I did pretty well at the festival for it being my first one, and now I know how much work goes into participating as a vendor at a festival! I will definitely be keeping my eyes out for more fairs, especially ones only for crafters.