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How to Choose Which Holiday Markets and Events to Sell At | Episode 27

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts


The holiday invitations start showing up around September. A craft fair, a downtown market, the pop-up someone swears was amazing last year, plus the two markets you already did and loved. Every one of them feels like money on the table.


I learned the hard way that it isn't. I took on way too much in November one year and had nothing left for December, which is exactly the month I wanted to be present for. So now I plan my fourth quarter events on purpose, and I say no a lot more than I used to.


Start with where your customer already shops

Before you fill out a vendor application, get clear on where the people you want to reach spend their Saturdays. At the small town holiday market? At a curated, upscale artisan event? Online, because they want delivery or porch pickup? Some of them are not shopping for a product at all, they want an experience they can give to a friend.


If your customer is young families, you might find them at a family friendly pumpkin patch. If your customer is retirees, you might find them at a craft market. Do the digging on who your primary customer really is, then go find out where she already is.


Read the size and the vibe before you say yes

Not every event is the same, and you do not need to be everywhere. You should not want to be everywhere.


Large events bring a lot of foot traffic. Smaller niche events are often better aligned with customers willing to pay premium prices for an artisan product. Look for the ones that match the vibe and values of your bakery.


The framing of the event tells you what people arrive ready to buy. A holiday farmers market brings people looking for a loaf to take as a hostess gift or to feed their family. A craft sale brings people looking for something to wrap, so a gift box, a jar of starter, a Danish whisk or a grab and go single serve item will move much better than a plain loaf.


When I am sizing up an event, I ask the organizer two questions: do you have an estimate of foot traffic, and do you have a sense of the demographic that usually comes? A brand new market will not have an answer, and that is fine. Anyone who has run it before usually will.


Read the event's own marketing too, and look at where it is held. A hip urban district draws a completely different crowd than a family oriented suburban neighborhood.


Do your homework on the event itself

If the market has run before, reach out to a few vendors who sold there and ask about their experience. A big market with a hundred vendors means nothing if the foot traffic never shows up, and with our short shelf life a slow day costs you the product as well as the time.


If you don't know where to start, search Facebook for something like "vendor events near me," or call your local chamber of commerce. Make the list first, then research it before you apply.


Say yes to fewer events than you think you can handle

The biggest mistake we make in the fourth quarter is trying to do too much.


I have already been asked back to a couple of markets I did last year, and I am booked elsewhere on the same days. I would love to be at both. My baking capacity is not that high and I could only do one of them well, so I am doing one, and no back to back events this season either.


Your limits are your own. You may have the capacity for two days in a row, and if that works for you, it is a good yes. If it pushes you past where you are comfortable, sit one of them out.


When you build the calendar, plan around production and not just the event date:

  • If your dough needs a day and a half to ferment and a full day to bake, leave that much buffer between events, plus rest.

  • Look at how much inventory you can really produce. If the number only works when you bake around the clock and skip a night of sleep, that is not your best yes.

  • If the season needs repeated overnight baking or a run of very long days, scale back where you can. You will be too wiped out on your days off to enjoy any of it.


Watch the pre-order weeks especially

Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks bring a wave of demand whether you go looking for it or not. If you are taking pre-orders those weeks, protect the capacity to fulfill them before you add an event on top. I say no to events both of those weeks, because I am anticipating very large pre-order numbers and that is where I want my time to go.


You do not have to run pre-orders at all. You could do only events, or both if you have the capacity. Just line the timeline up on paper first so you can see where you are about to spread yourself too thin. My episode on calculating your capacity for markets and pre-orders walks through that math.


If vendor events are not your thing, build your own

Maybe nothing local fits how you do business, or vendor events were never your model. Take what serves you and leave the rest.


Host your own small event. A pop-up at a local coffee shop, brewery, salon or boutique. Or a private tasting where customers sample a flight of your seasonal flavors, with pairings if you partner with a winery or brewery. Run it as a Thanksgiving preview in late October and let people place their holiday pre-orders on the spot.


Collaborate with a local business. Partner with a florist on a Bread and Blooms bundle, or with a cafe that puts your bread on their seasonal menu if that fits the cottage laws where you are. You each get in front of an audience you would not have reached alone.


Go after corporate gifting. Realtors, insurance offices and other local businesses are all shopping for client gifts right now. Curate a basket: a flight of mini loaves with dipping oil and crackers or grissini, or a bundle of cookies and scones.


One of my top products last year was a teacher appreciation flight of mini scones for the last week of school: a long charcuterie box, four flavors of mini scones inside, tied with hemp twine and finished with a dehydrated orange slice, a sprig of rosemary and a gift tag. They flew! Scones suit that kind of volume because you can freeze them ahead and bake them from frozen. The slow part was tying every box, so hand the assembly off if you can.


Offer a holiday subscription. Fresh sourdough delivered or picked up every week or two through the holidays gives you predictable recurring sales, and customers love not having to think about it. Hotplate and the Simply Bread app don't handle recurring orders, so you would manage it manually or run it through something like Square or your website.


Teach a workshop. People love learning to make sourdough, and you have almost certainly been asked. Private groups, corporate teams or a public class all work. My conversation with Kala Hembree, who has taught over 1,800 people to bake bread, covers running one well.


An audit for the baker a few years in

If you have a couple of holiday seasons behind you, you have data most bakers wish they had. Put every event you did last year in a row: total sales, hours spent including bake and setup, the vendor fee, and product you brought home unsold.


Rank the list and look at the bottom two. Usually one is on your calendar out of habit, and letting it go frees up the exact weekend you needed for pre-orders.


Final thoughts

If your whole holiday season is one really good event plus your pre-orders, that is a season well run. Your time and your energy are worth just as much as your sales.


Go get your calendar out this week. Pencil in the few events that genuinely fit, leave real space between them for production and rest, and keep room for the holiday baking you do just because you love it.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If you are mapping out your fourth quarter, these will help you fill in the rest of the plan.


Links to things you might like!


 
 
 

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