Market Mayhem: Harvest Moon Arts and Crafts Market

Welcome to our first Market Mayhem post on the new website! This blog series seeks to analyze each market we attend and extract all the messy lessons we learned so that you don't have to, while also providing a nice little recap for our friends who couldn't visit. This week's Mayhem was the Harvest Moon Festival in Hebron, CT, a little town near my parents' place. Let's go!

The Arts and Crafts Market

The Harvest Moon festival was a single-day event on Saturday that took place from noon to eight and included a pumpkin carving event, a pie contest, trick or treating for kids, and plenty of arts and crafts market staples like candle makers, food trucks, cottage bakeries, and of course, crochet artists. The foot traffic was pretty good, mainly composed of young kids and their parents. We were placed towards the end of the event, but right across from the local cafe where the pie-baking competition was held, so we got pretty good traffic despite not being in an ideal spot.

Organization-wise, the Harvest Moon festival left a lot to be desired. They didn't give us our locations until a few days before the market. When we did get the chart, they had me under two different numbers, so I didn't know where I was exactly, and it was a significant difference as it was either closer to the yard games or at the very far end of the market. When I arrived, they said I could pick which spot I wanted, which was a first.

The biggest problem? They didn't turn down anyone who applied to vend, I assume because they wanted to fill the whole main street with people. This lead to one of the worst situations I've had happen at a market yet - a total of nine crocheters l selling very similar stuff, with a few other booths having some crochet items mixed in with a variety of others. You read that right. NINE crochet booths. With at least three (that I saw) other booths with a few crochet items. That is a ridiculous number of crochet stalls, and it led to less sales for everyone. I had people coming to my booth with crochet plushies that looked very similar to mine (I'd argue mine were cuter, but of course I would) in hand. One kid had a tantrum because he liked one of my ghosts better than the ghost he'd gotten at another booth, but because I was the last crocheter on the road, people saw me last. Multiple people commented that one of my items, a Mable the Chicken made with Oak and Marlow's pattern, looked identical to the chickens at a couple of other booths, so we were very literally selling the same things.

Having that many crocheters at one market was extremely poor planning and I sincerely hope that the market organizers realize that. It does make me less inclined to register for their early spring market, even though it is also on the main road and so convenient. It's not encouraging to know that this is the third year of the Harvest Moon festival, and they still don't know better.

By the Numbers

Looking at the market strictly statistically, it was fairly successful. There was a $70 booth fee for my 10x10ft tent display, and I spent almost $400 on materials. Normally I don't have as high material costs, but I purchased folding tables this time instead of relying on borrowing from a friend and spent a lot of money on glow-in-the-dark eyes and yarn. Not to mention I had to buy lighting, and then the standard materials costs of yarn and safety eyes. It added up.

We had about $750 in sales. There was around $70 through our Venmo, and the rest was split between cash and card. The best sellers were our $5 mini spiders with 8 out of 10 selling, our mystery Halloween keychains with 9 out of 12, and our fluffy owls with 4 out of 5 getting sold. Other favorites were our pumpkin frogs (3 out of 3 sold) and a number of our non-Halloween items including mini dinos (3 out of 6 sold) and our mushlings (3 out of 5 sold).

Our worst-selling items in this market were our ghosts, glow-in-the-dark cauldrons, and frog pumpkin pals. We didn't sell a single one of those three, which was shocking until I saw kids carrying ghosts from another booth. Out of the 143 items we made, we still have 96 Halloween-specific items left. In other words, only 47 Halloween items were sold, not even half of what I made.

But Was It A Success?

Looking at our numbers, it's clear the market was by no means a failure. We made good money, with about $300 pure profit. But, it wasn't nearly as successful as other markets, due to several reasons. To start, the oversaturation of the market meant I didn't sell as many of my Halloween items. Some of my more unique ones, like my bats and pumpkin frogs, did sell, but the common patterns in my eyeball keychains, ghosts, and candy corn didn't as other stalls had very similar items.

Secondly, it was a largely free event. Parents attended with their kids for trick or treating, not to buy gifts or toys. So while I had some kids who successfully begged a present from their parents, my usual demographic of teenagers and college kids was not there. A lot of the kids didn't recognize the monsters I made, like Cthulu, Mothman, and Slenderman. None of the 4 Mothman plushies sold. Neither did my boogeymen, Slenderman, or Frankenstein's monsters.

Also, I was both over and under-prepared for this market due to having surgery a mere two weeks before the event. I was stuck at home for that whole time with nothing to do but crochet more and more Halloween items, so I was wildly overprepared with inventory. But I wasn't able to do any mock setups and I couldn't count the inventory I had that was packed away already since I was nearly bedbound. At the event itself, I was sitting and not as upbeat as I typically am to bring in customers because I was in a lot of pain (Still am, that's why this post is so late!). As necessary as the surgery was, it wasn't the best timing.

So while yes, by most measures the market was a success, I am not satisfied by the result because I know it could have been so much better if I had spent less money on glow-in-the-dark supplies that didn't sell in the end, if there had been fewer crocheters, and if I had made less stock (I was never going to sell all 16 candy corn, after all). Of course, the excess stock was because I love Halloween and had fun making them, and the glow-in-the-dark stuff was just too cool to pass up.

Lesson Learned

What can we learn from this whole mess? For one, glow-in-the-dark is fun, but not as big of a draw as anticipated. Also, the event was not aimed at shopping. It was about free events like contests, games, and trick-or-treating, and I should have adjusted accordingly. The organization was also a mess, so I'll have to decide whether to do another event with the hosting group or not.

In other words, the big takeaway from this market is the importance of market research. I was overprepared for an over-saturated, poorly organized community event that was more for families having fun than for shopping. I had never attended this event before, and I ignored my parents telling me that it was unlikely to be a good sales event. I needed to do more research on the event, listen to the information gathered, and adjust my plans to match that research. I should not have made as much as I did, even if I had fun making them, because there were a lot of expensive materials wasted on items that likely won't sell until next Halloween.

Some of the problems with the Harvest Moon festival were out of my control, but I should have been more aware of the things I could control. Lesson learned.

Where Do We Go From Here?

None of the Halloween stock is going to go to waste. All of it is now available under the Seasonal Collections page in our shop with a 15% discount on all orders over $20. Anything that doesn't sell by November 16th (when the Halloween gets traded out), will go into storage for next year. Hopefully, because I have so much stock, I can do two Halloween Markets.

Our next market is going to be a big one, and one we've already done - the Hebron Holiday Craft Fair on December 14th! This event is again, very close to where my parents live making it super convenient, but more than that it is a big market full of my target demographic and people shopping for Christmas presents. Last year I made a lot of money even with a small display and minimal experience, so this year should only be better.

Stay tuned for more updates as we start work on our Holiday collection, and thank you for reading!