by Pam Corwin

A customer looks at work by several different artists at the most recent home sale at craftsperson Pam Corwin’s house. Work shown here includes jewelry by Quirkworks (left), candles by Blue Heron (center) and clocks by Corwin’s Paper Scissors Rock (right).

Having a home show is a great way to build your local customer base and an inexpensive alternative to doing local shows. It can also help boost sales during a slow period. But any show is a lot of work, and if you are taking on the job of organizer and promoter, you should be prepared for even more work.

What to consider
Preparation takes a lot of effort. You’re going to have to clean your house, remove pictures from your walls, take everything off your shelves … then put it all back and clean again after the show. You also really need to think about whether you’re comfortable with so many strangers walking through your house.

Parking. Before any show, you’ll need to address the issue of parking. I always talk to neighbors before a show and offer to place any signs necessary to protect their property and direct traffic.

Special permits. Check with your city or municipality to see if you need a permit to host a show in your home.

Double the show, double the dough
With all the work involved, you may want to consider letting the show run for two consecutive weekends. People who can’t come one weekend can usually come the next. Others will return and bring friends. The only catch — you’ll have to live in a house that’s set up as a crafts fair for the week in between. But the profits will probably more than double.

TOTAL COST OF A HOME SHOW

Total costs from Pam Corwin’s last show: • Newspaper ads $286 • 1,000 postcards $70 • Postage for $200 (1,000 postcards) • Signs $15 • Post-show $50 (house cleaning) • Carpet cleaning $100 Total $721 Estimated cost per person (for 10 people) including money for possible additional expenses: $80

Team effort
I usually have between seven and 10 artists participate in the show. More participants means more variety, a larger mailing list and a manageable workload per person. It’s important to choose artists not only by product mix, but also by personality. You’re going to work together closely, so cooperation and compromise is crucial.

You can handle your sales individually during the show, but I’ve found that customers prefer a central checkout area to pay for all their purchases at once. If you choose to do this, you may want to make it easier for the cashier by keeping prices even to the dollar and including tax.

At our shows, one person acts as the bank and pays each artist at the end of the show. We take turns at the checkout table, working in pairs. Each receipt has a subtotal for each artist. Everyone brings his or her own charge machine — you can process your own charges or have the cashiers do them. At the end of each day, a team of two tallies up the individual totals.

JOB TO ASSIGN

Postcard designer. Design postcard and write all text. Have it printed and bring it to the pre-show meeting. Banker. Collect expense money, reimburse artists for job expenses, tally sales, write and mail checks to each participant, and print and send statement of total costs with each check. Banking assistant. Help banker tally sales after each show day. Advertising (two people). Collect product descriptions from each artist, then write and design ads, and place the ads in newspapers. Research other fairs on the same weekend and arrange for reciprocal advertising. (We’ll give out their flyers if they’ll give out ours.) Signs. Paint or print signs and sandwich boards for street traffic. Place them out each morning when the show opens and take them in at the close of the show each day. Setup (two people). Help homeowner clean, put away knick-knacks, move furniture and empty shelves as needed before the show. Cleaning (two people). Clean house after the show and help homeowner put belongings back in place. Food coordinator. (Optional) Buy food to put out and regularly replenish it during the show. In the beginning, we each brought cookies every day (nothing greasy and nothing too crumbly), and since we were each contributing some we paid for them individually. We each brought paper cups and napkins. Then we designated a food coordinator to buy all the paper products and put out cookies and candy well as hot cider and/or wine (only white!). We spend under $50 for everything. Postage. Tally stamps needed, purchase them and bring them to pre-show meeting. Mail all postcards.

Pre-show planning
With several cooks in the kitchen, pre-show meetings are a must. Two or three months before the show, discuss everything and assign jobs. A sample meeting agenda includes the following:

• Plan show dates, times and a setup schedule.
• Discuss the possibility of conflicts in the product mix. What if two people sell the same type of items? At our first few shows people showed up the day of setup with items they hadn’t mentioned before; we now require everyone to list everything they plan to sell.
• Agree on how to handle any damage to personal property and/or merchandise. At the end of my first show an expensive glass table was cracked when someone was vacuuming. Some people felt we should all share the cost, others felt the person who did it should pay for it all. The next year it rained cats and dogs all weekend and my carpets got filthy — no one wanted to pitch in to have them cleaned. We now have a damage agreement in place before every show and add the cost of cleaning the home and/or carpets into the total show costs.
• Find out from your insurance agent if you need additional insurance coverage for the show to cover merchandise damage or personal injury.
• Assign show space bearing in mind if anyone has special needs or requires shelves or space to hang items. Also determine if there will be areas off limits to artists and/or guests, and whether furniture will be moved to make additional space.
• Determine the most effective advertising venues. Will you place ads, do radio spots or make posters?
• Collect from each artist a one-line description of their work for joint ads and postcards. If you decide to do your own
• ads and postcards, consider whether it is fair to expect other artists to share their mailing lists with you. This is often an interesting argument.
• Determine the number of postcards needed for each artist, including extra postcards to hand out at the show. Estimate how many stamps you’ll need to cover your combined mailing lists.
• Assign each artist one or two jobs
• Discuss and total all costs . Add a few dollars more to the total, just in case of unforeseen needs, divide by the number of participants and collect checks. The assigned banker uses this money to reimburse everyone for money spent on jobs. After the show, anything left over in the expense account is divided up evenly and refunded.
• Create a phone tree to use for pre-show planning and unforeseen events.
• Schedule another meeting for two to three weeks before the show to address and stamp postcards. Take the time to discuss any last-minute concerns.

Profits make perfect
My shows have grossed anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000. The individual profits span from $300 to more than $2,000 (several artists have taken large orders that are not included in these totals).

With no long-distance travel, less setup, great company and a cost of only $80 a person, we consider our shows a great success. And to thank our gracious homeowners, each artist gives a small thank-you gift from his or her booth.

If you are organized, your show can be relatively stress free and even a lot of fun.