Holiday Shopping Spectacular was hosted by Indie Craft Experience at Yaarab Temple on Ponce de Leon Ave. I had high hopes since Indie Craft Experience has been hosting markets since 2005, and November is a holiday shopping month. Sadly, this was the first market of 2024 where I did not make back table fees. On the flipside, I was able to meet wonderful creatives and got lots of trades!
It’s always challenging to reflect on why a market didn’t perform well, but I left Holiday Shopping Spectacular with two theories: table location and audience niche.
Generally, I avoid blaming table location, it can easily become a bad habit bordering on superstition. I believe most well planned events have enough of an attendee to vendor ratio to mitigate geographical disadvantages. However, when I arrived Saturday morning a problem immediately presented itself. While the email told us our spaces would be 6×5 feet, they really meant it. Vendors who were on the perimeter of the room had no buffer space between each other or the walls, creating a claustrophobic environment. I often had to crawl out from under my own table to escape! It didn’t help that the middle island rows only had about 6 feet of clearance from the perimeter tables, despite the island rows having about 20 feet between each other. This meant that perimeter tables directly across from a island tables, such as my own, created bottle necks that customers wouldn’t want to linger in. It really think the tables could’ve been better distributed.
My honest opinion, there were too many vendors from both a safety and attendance perspective! While traffic was consistent, it never felt like customers filled out the big vendor hall space. I’d overheard a staff member say there were 700 in attendance on Saturday, which would average out about five shoppers per vendor. I just found the ratio surprising, considering that Indie Craft Experience is an established market organizer with expensive tables. Now to be fair, this was my first craft-focused market so perhaps my expectations weren’t reasonable. Having spoken to other vendors, sales performances were extremely mixed, with some struggling to make back table while others looked forward to the next ICE event. There did seem to be a correlation between success and an island booth, and unfortunately I was a perimeter booth.
However, I have to own my faults, my work just wasn’t a good fit for their audience. Perhaps it should’ve been obvious from the name, Indie Craft Experience, but hand-crafted goods were what the people came for. While I do design all my merchandise, I also rely on printers and manufacturers for final products so I think I missed the mark. My themes appeal more towards nerdy weird younger adults as well, which just wasn’t the vibe. While I observed a wide age range, I’d estimate the majority of shoppers were gen x and older. Thinking about it, most of my customers were the few millennials and gen Z folks I spotted, ha ha!
Which was so funny, as an artist I didn’t fit in with Holiday Shopping Spectacular, but as a customer I would’ve been pretty happy to attend! On my walks I kept spotting amazing booths with beautiful work, and plenty more Instas to follow. The competition was fierce yet again! Since sales didn’t go well I wasn’t able to bring home as many as I would’ve liked. So I was so grateful when fellow vendors agreed to trade! It was also encouraging to hear surprise from other vendors that I hadn’t made back table. My skills aren’t the problem!
All this to say, while Holiday Shopping Spectacular was a terrible fit for me, I think handmade focused vendors could do much better and there’s plenty Indie Craft Experience did right. Communication was good, we’d gotten an email a month before the event with load-in load-out procedures, instructions, a table map, and details about the venue. They warned us that lightning would be uneven in the event hall so I came prepared with my lights. There was consistent hyping up on Instagram before and during the event. Vendors were also provided with a gift bag of snacks on arrival and water bottles were available upon request. I appreciated their choice of DJ, they kept a nice beat going on Saturday and then Sunday was holiday tunes.
Billie’s Vendor Rating
| Other Vendor Booths | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Foot Traffic | ⭐⭐ |
| Attendee Vibes | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Restrooms | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Pokémon GO | ⭐ |
I’m sad to say, Holiday Shopping Spectacular is the first show on my no return list and I’m wary of applying to any other Indie Craft Experience events. I think other vendors could still find success at their markets but it was just not my scene.
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