We had a total of approximately 450 customers, 353 of whom paid, allowing us to donate over $700 to our charity partner, FoodShare. The rest were contest winners or guests of the hotel who were allowed in for free.

Here is a status update on vendor concerns and what we’re going to change for next time.

Venue issues
First, a note that while we hope to produce future events at the Gladstone (the venue ticks most of the boxes for us in terms of location, accessibility, support for the arts community, etc.) we may not always be in the same rooms, so the issues associated with specific areas of the venue may be moot, depending on what spaces we use.

A couple of vendors brought up the fact that tables located above the floor air vents in the Ballroom got quite cold. I can relate to this – these same vents exist in the cafe and are unpleasant to sit near when the heat or AC is on. Action to be taken: sorry, nothing we can do on this one. Even covering these vents causes problems as it makes the rest of the space too hot/cold.

Lighting in some areas of the space was another concern. Had it been a bright sunny day, it would have been less so, but the spots in the back area of the Melody Bar were unfortunately dark. Action to be taken: we will map out hydro outlets for this room and will advise vendors to bring lighting.

Smelly pipe in back section of Melody Bar – yikes! Action to be taken: advise venue of this issue, people eat in that area. (However, it may be something that they know about already and cannot fix. It’s an old building.)

Poor traffic flow/ don’t use Art Bar/ don’t use back part of Melody Lounge
Okay, I can’t not use both spaces. More than likely we will not have access to the Art Bar the next time around; the Gladstone plans to lease this space out to a retail tenant, and of the two less popular spaces, it was the one that felt the most cramped (and we actually pulled a 6ft table out of there at the last minute). Our plan is to put more vendors in the Melody Lounge, both front and back, utilizing the “dead zones” better, and also putting vendors at the various sofa seating areas at both the front and the back of the room, as we did with the guys from Civic Trust who took over the lounge chairs and coffee table in the front window.

There will be more vendors in the back part of the Melody Lounge (probably eight compared to the four we had at the first event) so this will hopefully be more of a draw to customers to make their way to the back of the room. With improved lighting in this area, we hope that this part of the venue won’t be the dead zone it was.

As for traffic flow, we will have staff stationed to sell admission at the entrances to both rooms so that more people will be directed into the Melody Lounge first, instead of everyone funnelling through the Ballroom and spending all their money there before they got to the other rooms.

Provide a floor plan to vendors before the event/charge less for the tables in the back of the Melody Bar
I’ve put these two concerns together because they can both be answered with one phrase. Vendor Tetris.

In a standard craft show where there is one size of table, these would both be easy options that we would happily do. However, we are working with a very different set of parameters; we have many different sizes of tables (many of which cannot be moved), and we have many different types of vendors. Every time a vendor cancelled, or requested some specific amenity such as hydro, it typically required me to rearrange 4 – 5 other vendors to accommodate the change. Few vendors ended up in the same spot they had been assigned to on my original floor plan. We also made a very concerted effort to keep vendors with similar goods away from each other. If you noticed, the three soap vendors were all in different rooms; jewellery vendors were never placed side-by-side; small press vendors were spread throughout the space. We did this to ensure that everyone looked at everything, to prevent customers from comparing like with like, and so that vendors would not feel “competition” from other nearby vendors.

So unfortunately, I can’t really do much about either of these issues, as we really are moving people around right up until the very last minute. If I print a map, then I get to spend the whole day explaining to people why the map is incorrect.

Put similar stuff together
As addressed in the issue above, we can’t really do this and don’t really want to. The point of the event is that people come in and hopefully discover things that are out of their comfort zone. Maybe you came to look at jewellery, but found yourself drawn in to a display of comics. That might not happen if we paired like with like.

No storage space under tables with centre posts
We are really lucky that the Gladstone supplies tables and chairs for these events, at no extra charge. However, this means that we have to use what they have available, and don’t really have a say in the matter when it comes to the style of the furniture provided. Given that I made the poor event coordinator dig around in the Gladstone’s basement to ensure they had enough tables to cover our needs, I can’t really be fussy about the style of those tables once we have the use of them.

Not enough signage to draw people in to the event
The rain sadly affected us in a couple of ways in terms of getting people in off the street. First, it washed our info off the Gladstone’s sidewalk chalk board, and it was too inclement to have our staff out on the street handing out flyers to passersby.

Within the lobby, because the Gladstone is a heritage property, we can’t really affix signage to walls or doors. Because this event was an experiment, we didn’t invest in any kind of fancy signage, but we are looking at purchasing tall banner stands, providing the Gladstone will allow us to erect these in the lobby during the event. We will also, weather-permitting, have people out on the street handing out flyers to draw in street traffic.

Tables too close together/ too many people behind tables
Vendor response to this issue was mixed. About half the people who mentioned it felt the tables were too close together, or that some vendors had too many people behind their tables, and the other half thought it was just right and there was plenty of room. The reality is that we need to have as many vendors as possible to make the event work (and keep your table price low), so it is unlikely that we will be removing many tables from the Ballroom. What we can do is pull the tables out a bit and make the aisles slightly more narrow, allowing for more room behind the tables.

We will also be enforcing strict rules about the number of people a vendor may have working their table. We had complaints about vendors cramming 2 or even 3 people being a small 2ft or 3ft space, especially in the centre section of the Ballroom, and this is really not acceptable. I got called a bitch by someone when I tried to enforce that rule on the 13th, but that’s something I’m willing to live with if it makes the day easier for everyone else.

Make hours later
We would love to have the event start a bit later and run until 5 or 6pm, or even into the evening. Unfortunately, the Melody Lounge is not available to us after 5pm as they are open for dinner service, karaoke, etc. That room has to close down at 4:30pm, and it would be unfair to close one room while leaving the other room open. As such, the 10:30am – 4:30pm time frame is what we’ve got to work with. What we can do is look at ways to get customers to show up earlier. I’m not sure I want to deal with making (and transporting) the “early bird goodie bags” that some events offer; however, we will look at possibly offering a free or discounted admission before noon.

If we end up not using the Melody Bar for some reason, a later start and end date will definitely be considered.

TIAM Staff/runners were hard to find
Because we wanted to keep the number of people behind vendors’ tables to a minimum, we hired a couple of people to act as runners; to do quick errands for vendors or mind a table while a vendor took a quick break. Despite us telling vendors this as they arrived, and despite the runners going around the rooms to vendors to ask if they needed anything, few vendors actually too advantage of this service. One of the complaints we heard was that the runners were hard to find.

However, we had people working at the doors to both main rooms, so all vendors had to do was tell the door person they needed a runner and one would have been found for them. Action to be taken: Y’all need to speak up if you need our help!

Promotion
Most vendors thought we did well on promoting the event with a multi-pronged approach that included social media (Facebook and Twitter) shop and street postering, and featured vendor spots on our website. While the contests run by vendors to win free passes were popular with both customers and vendors, we probably won’t do those again, as it was a bit of an administrative nightmare with incorrect names, names not submitted, contests not run, etc. Instead, giveaways will likely be done centrally through TIAM and vendors can help promote the contests to their fans/customers but will not run the contests themselves.

Cost of admission
A few vendors felt that the $5 admission was too high, but when we brought that up in a separate post last week, the response was overwhelmingly in favour of a higher paid admission to keep vendor costs low and to be able to support a local charity with each event. We know most other events have free or lower admission, but they also charge more for tables, have corporate sponsors, and don’t give 40% of their profit to charity. So even though it’s actually more work for us on event day, the $5 paid admission stays!

Food!
Unbeknownst to us, The Gladstone has a “no outside food” policy for craft fairs (we got caught eating hot dogs from across the street!). Which makes sense, because they have a restaurant on site, but makes life difficult for vendors who are at a table for 6 hours and cannot take the time to sit in the cafe for brunch (if there’s even room), or who maybe don’t want to be chowing down at their tables on a big plate of eggs as they’re trying to engage with customers. We’ve brought up this issue with The Gladstone and have been told that the cafe is planning a selection of “Grab & Go” items coming soon. We’re also hoping that the Gladstone will actually take part in TIAM by offering some small hot food items at a station within one of the market rooms, which would be great for both vendors and customers.

Thanks to all the vendors who took the time to send us their feedback. We will definitely take your advice into consideration and will make the above noted changes where possible.

Cheap Thrills T.O.

Hardcore Toronto Lust

Maijinutiae

Thanks to everyone who wrote such nice things about the event – we’re looking forward to doing many more!

Vendors responded with a variety of issues that I will address in another blog post later this week after I’ve had time to do some further research (some of these require consultation with the venue to see what changes they will allow us to make).

However, one comment that came up, and that could have an effect on how we deal with some of the other issues (such as traffic flow) was that the admission price of $5 was too high, and that it was a deterrent to people who might have come in to shop had admission been less, or free.

For the record, on a pissing rainy day, we had 353 paid admissions, and about another 100 people in attendance who won passes or who were hotel guests of the Gladstone, who were let in for free. This is slightly less than what we expected/hoped for, but we’re still mostly blaming the weather and not the price. We based the price of $5 on the fact that people were paying the same to get into the monthly Junction Flea event at the Great Hall (a few blocks away), and that it was enough to allow us to donate $2 from every admission to our partner charity.

Our goal in creating TIAM was threefold; to create an event that was financially accessible to even the smallest vendor, the folks who had one book, or only a small amount of merchandise, and who couldn’t afford to take part in larger fairs or market; to work with and raise money for a worthy local charity; and finally to make enough money to pay ourselves a reasonable wage for our time and effort.

From the selfish point of view of my own personal stress level, I would love to make TIAM free admission. It means I could get away with a skeleton crew of 2 – 3 on the day of the event, instead of the 5 people we had (or the 6 people I would need if we had people at the door of both rooms selling admission). It means I wouldn’t be stuck behind a table all day and could move around the event, dealing with problems and issues, helping vendors where needed (and actually shopping!). And it means that we wouldn’t have to run giveaways for passes in the week leading up to the event, freeing up that precious last minute time before an event for other stuff.

However, moving to a free admission system means two very important things change.

First and foremost, rates for vendor tables go up, by a minimum of 50%. So tables that were $20 will go up to $30, and tables that were $60 will be $90. At least. If you are a vendor who vends at other craft shows, you’ll know that prices for TIAM are incredibly low. This is because we charged vendors ONLY enough to cover the cost of the venue rental. Any personal income we make is at the door. If I switch to a free admission system, I have to increase the costs to vendors to cover other expenses and pay myself and any people I have working for me for the day.

The other concern is that without a paid admission, we are no longer able to make a donation to a local charity. We would still work with a charity and offer them a free table at the event, but there would be no door proceeds to split with them. We would look at other solutions to this issue (maybe allowing them to wander the event with donation buckets, etc.) but it does mean that one of the main goals we wanted to achieve with this event is now gone.

So this is where I ask for feedback – from previous vendors, potential future vendors, and from customers. Is $5 a fair price to get in? Or do you think that the extra charge to vendors for tables would be offset by increased sales due to more people attending the event? As a vendor, are you willing/able to pay $30 to $90 for a table?

Please let us know what you think. We’ll take everything into consideration when planning for the next event in the autumn.

Thanks!
Sheryl & Greg

To all the vendors who came with such beautiful work and made such gorgeous displays, thank you for your fantastic efforts, we hope the day was as much of a success for you as it was for us.

To the amazing staff at the Gladstone Hotel (and especially the AV guy they got out of bed to come down and turn on all the lights for us!), thank you for your patience and professionalism. We hope to be working with you again very soon.

And finally thanks to everyone who braved the rain and cold to come out and support some incredibly talented local artisans, writers, artists, food producers and craftspeople. Besides the commendable choice to purchase locally-made products, you also helped us raise over $700 for our charity partner FoodShare.

Despite the many compliments you offered us, we know some things about the event were less than perfect, and we’ll be working and planning to fix the flaws and make the next event even better. Issues with traffic flow, lighting, and the arrangement of vendor space (and the number of people in that space) will be at the forefront as we plan future events.

To keep track of what we’re up to, please follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or join our mailing lists (one for vendors, one for customers). We’ll be posting information about future events as soon as they’re confirmed.

And once again, thanks to everyone for their support!

Simply retweet the tweet of this post on Twitter, today, April 11th, and your name will be entered into a draw for 1 of 5 pairs of passes.

Contest winners will be contacted via Twitter on April 12th.

The Details:

- names will be drawn from all eligible contestants for each contest
- contest winners will be notified of their win via the contest format (Twitter winners will be contacted via Twitter, etc.)
- passes have no cash value
- non-transferable
- no physical ticket/pass, winners will be added to our guest list

Simply join the Facebook event today, April 10th, and your name will be entered into a draw for 1 of 5 pairs of passes.

Contest winners will be contacted via Facebook on April 11th.

The Details:

- names will be drawn from all eligible contestants for each contest
- contest winners will be notified of their win via the contest format (Twitter winners will be contacted via Twitter, etc.)
- passes have no cash value
- non-transferable
- no physical ticket/pass, winners will be added to our guest list

Simply sign up for our mailing list today, April 9th and your name will be entered into a draw for 1 of 5 pairs of passes.

Contest winners will be contacted via email on April 10th.

The Details:

- names will be drawn from all eligible contestants for each contest
- contest winners will be notified of their win via the contest format (Twitter winners will be contacted via Twitter, etc.)
- passes have no cash value
- non-transferable
- no physical ticket/pass, winners will be added to our guest list

Simply visit our Facebook page today, April 8th, and “Like” us, and your name will be entered into a draw for 1 of 5 pairs of passes.

Contest winners will be contacted via Facebook on April 9th.

The Details:

- names will be drawn from all eligible contestants for each contest
- contest winners will be notified of their win via the contest format (Twitter winners will be contacted via Twitter, etc.)
- passes have no cash value
- non-transferable
- no physical ticket/pass, winners will be added to our guest list

There’s less than a week to go until our market on Saturday, April 13th at the Gladstone Hotel. And to sweeten the deal a little bit, we’re giving away 25 pairs of passes through a series of contests that will run today until Thursday.

Sunday, April 7th – Follow us on Twitter! All new followers today on Twitter will be entered into a draw for 1 of 5 pairs of TIAM passes.

Monday, April 8th – Like us on Facebook. All new Facebook follows will be entered into a contest to win 1 of 5 pairs of passes. (Don’t forget to share our Facebook page with your Friends.)

Tuesday, April 9th – Sign up to our mailing list. We’ll be drawing 5 names from our regular mailing list for a pair of passes.

Wednesday, April 10th – RSVP! Coming to the market? Then head to our Facebook event page and join the event. We’ll draw 5 names to win a pair of passes each.

Thursday, April 11th – ReeeeTWEET! Find the message about today’s contest on our Twitter feed and retweet it for a chance to win 1 of 5 pairs of passes.

The Details:

- names will be drawn from all eligible contestants for each contest
- contest winners will be notified of their win via the contest format (Twitter winners will be contacted via Twitter, etc.)
- passes have no cash value
- non-transferable
- no physical ticket/pass, winners will be added to our guest list

Sound good? Well what are you waiting for? Follow us on Twitter today for your chance to win, and check us out throughout the week for our other contests!

We’ve saved the sweetest vendor profile for last! Because we know you need sustenance while shopping, we’re delighted to have Cookie Martinez taking part at TIAM with her range of fantastic baked goods that includes cookies, brownies and muffins.

Cookie Martinez
Average price point: $1.50 – $20

Artist statement: My products are mostly made with local, organic, and Latin ingredients. All my goodies are hand made in small batches, and the brownies are hand cut. My stuff is a different product that customers are not used to, and the combination of local and Latin ingredients make them awesome!

If you like Cookie’s cookies, they can also be found at a variety of shops and cafes including The Depanneur, West End Food Coop, and Good Catch General Store.