Prepping for the Ren Faire Part 1: Products, Booth Decisions, and More
While I don’t plan on making ren faire business tips a huge part of my blog or anything, I did want to write out a lot of what I did for my booth. Unfortunately, when I first started researching being a ren faire vendor, I didn’t find too many resources on things like what kinds of products to bring, how to decorate a 10x10 canopy-style booth for a one-day event, etc., so I want to write out what I did to help anyone else in the future who might also have these questions.
First up is some background. I am a small fry leather crafter based out of northeast Georgia. Originally I picked up leather crafting in high school, put it down for several years, then picked it back up again when I moved from Texas to Georgia. I had only been crafting again for a few months when the City of Lavonia announced they would be hosting a renaissance festival in October 2019, the first of what they hoped would become an annual tradition. Of course I signed up.
The first year I was one of two leather booths. I wasn’t especially proud of my work because I’d only been working with leather again for a few months, didn’t yet have the right resources or the best products, and didn’t have enough experience under my belt, but the show went pretty well and I sold quite a bit (I don’t remember exactly what I made but it was a couple hundred dollars or so). I became determined to make more and better products for the following year.
That brings me to the 2021 faire. Several customers told me I was the only proper leather craft booth there. The majority of what I made were woven belt pouches (pictured). I made them primarily out of oil tanned leather in either brown or black, but I also made a few out of colored veg tan or croc embossed cowhide. I meant to take inventory of the products I had, but I honestly ran out of time. Rough guess is probably 20ish pouches among the various leathers and the two different sizes I did. For pricing, that was determined by the leather and hardware used, closure method, and size. My small pouches I priced no less than $25 and my big pouches no less than $40.
I now see my mistake: I absolutely could have (and should have!) charged more for my pouches! The night before as I was pricing things, I kept seeing the flaws in what I’d made. I wasn’t happy with the cording on this pouch or the closure method on that pouch didn’t turn out centered so the pouch is slightly misaligned. This pouch has a place where I cut wrong. That pouch just… doesn’t meet my personally-imposed, unrealistically high quality standards.
However, what I didn’t do when pricing these items (aside from using a basic pricing formula) was consider the benefit these items would have for my customers. There are two key benefits that my woven pouches were offering: a (1) stylish, costume-appropriate accessory that’s (2) functional. Bonus benefit is that, since these items are made of leather, they’re going to last.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was haphazardly pricing things at 8:00pm the night before, I did take into account the materials costs. I knew exactly which hides I used to make which pieces, how many pouches I was able to make out of each hide (thus equaling how much the leather cost per pouch was), how much each piece of hardware used on the pouch was, etc. Thinking back now, that $25 price point barely covers time + materials on my small pouches.
What really drove this point home for me was the number of times I had customers comment on how inexpensive my items were. Thankfully, this being an in-person event, I didn’t have to worry about people thinking about how low the price is and wondering if that also translated into a cheap product, too, since they could see them, touch them, and get a good look at them. Matter of fact, many of these same customers commenting on the low prices also commented on the high quality of my products, which I think is what led to me completely selling out of the rustic brown and black pouches within the first two or three hours of the faire.
Other products I had included:
A few pairs of vambraces, two pairs very simple oil tan leather of original design and one pair a tooled black and gold version based on this pattern by Prince Armory
A single spaulder with Yggdrasil tooled on it based on this pattern by Dark Horse Workshop
Two baldrics and a sword frog (also Dark Horse Workshop)
A single, heavily tooled, black and red pouch with red gusset of original design
A large kidney belt with a tooled dragon and stamped dragon scales of original design
Mug frogs and skirt hikes
Belts (but oh dear god not enough belts)
Miscellaneous wallets and coin purses
DIY earring kits
Leather scrap bags
If there are any lessons to take away from this year’s ren faire product-wise, it’s these:
MAKE MORE BELTS - Almost every customer I had come to my booth asked if I had belts for sale. I sold all of my belts off of my mannequins and honestly might have even sold the one I was wearing, too. Did not think of this. I will not make this mistake again.
Potions bottles are also big sellers - One of the things I sold the first year that I didn’t bring the second year were potions bottles with little carrying harnesses or pouches. I had a few repeat customers come back to buy again this year, and all of them were wearing the potions bottles I’d sold last year. They all asked if I had more, but of course I didn’t. Next year!
Leave the DIY earring kits, coin pouches, and anything not thematically relevant at home - I had some very mild interest in the earring kits and the coin pouches, but not nearly enough to warrant me making more and bringing more next year.
Be more cognizant of the leather I buy - I did a small handful of what I thought were fantasy-inspired, lowkey Monster Hunter themed products with the croc embossed cowhide because I thought they would look damn cool, but while everyone looked at those, none of them sold. I made two sets of pouches (a large pouch + a small pouch), one in a red/black embossed croc and one in a white/brown embossed croc, as well as a handful of skirt hikes and mug frogs. This may have had to do with the price point or the fact that I sold these pouches as sets, I’m not really sure. All I know is that unless these pouches become a huge hit on Etsy, I don’t think I’ll be making any more since a) they didn’t sell, and b) they aren’t going to be priced any lower than what they were at the faire because that particular kind of leather is a royal pain in the ass to work with.
Despite my lack of belts and lower-than-it-should’ve-been pricing on my pouches, I still made almost $1400 in sales that day.
One KEY item that made that possible: my Square card reader.
While I know there’s no way to truly gauge how many sales I made exclusively due to my Square, I know at least four that amounted to roughly $400 in sales altogether would not have happened otherwise. The guy who bought my dragon scale kidney belt? Wouldn’t have bought without my card reader. The mother/daughter duo from my previous post who bought my turquoise shirt, belt, and matching turquoise skirt hike off my mannequin? Wouldn’t have bought without my card reader.
What blows my damn mind is that the mother from said duo told me that almost nobody else at the faire that day was taking cards.
Guys. It’s the 21st century. You can literally get a free Square card reader on their website. There are no monthly fees for just using the card reader, which I have. Hell, if you don’t want to get the reader, you can always use the app and just type in the customer’s card information. It’s just 2.6% + 10c per charge. I had $640 in sales on my Square card alone, and that amounted to less than $20 in fees. What would you rather have, a $140 sale or to not have to pay $3.74 in processing fees on said sale? (No this isn’t a sponsored post, I am just floored that so few people are taking advantage of this.)
Anyway, moving on.
So booth design. For this faire, they have a crazy short list of rules which basically amounts to “We request that booths are in theme with no obvious logos showing and vendors dress up in costume, however we aren’t actually enforcing this rule (yet)”. First thing’s first: it is 100% worth it to get a good quality 10x10 canopy for events like this. My first canopy was a dirt cheap piece of crap from Amazon that was made of the lightest weight PVC poles that you had to assemble and really horrible plastic “canvas” that ripped when I stretched it over the canopy’s corners. 0/10 do not recommend. The one and only time I used that canopy was for a local vendor event prior to beginning my leather crafting journey and it was a very windy day. Despite my canopy weights, I had myself and 3 other people there holding the tops of each corner so it didn’t blow away.
I knew I needed something better for the ren faire. I ended up buying one similar to this one, but from the local Ollie’s. I spent I think $70 on it, and while it didn’t come with 3 canopy sides like my first one, it was of infinitely better quality. The skeleton of the canopy collapsed and expanded instead of having to be assembled and taken apart afterward, and the material was proper metal, not PVC. This one had a tan canopy instead of white, which worked for my new branding. First year at the ren faire, I used a bunch of green curtains I’d also bought from Ollie’s that were made of linen and had a vaguely historical vibe to them to try to get a kind of tent effect, but it didn’t work out so well. For this past year, I decided to order 3 proper canopy walls in green to go with my green tablecloths, green mannequin, green skirt on said mannequin, foliage, and my own green dress.
Accent colors include various shades of brown in the form of baskets and bags of product, black in the form of a whole hide laid across my table, and wood crates to display my products stained with black cherry stain (actually a freakin’ gorgeous blood red color). I also incorporated the black cherry stain in the form of tabletop signs with prices for the items in baskets and a hanging sign that simply said Leather Shoppe. (Side note: the straw on the ground wasn’t mine, it was there when I set up.)
What I really want to do next year when I have more time is create some kind of hanging border to break up the weird disconnect between a tan canopy and green walls. I was originally thinking something medieval-style like pennants or something, but then I saw a pin on Pinterest where someone had put fringe on the edges of their canopy and I really love that idea, too. I do want to incorporate pennants, but I think I’ll use those more in a way to decorate the rope connecting my canopy & tent stakes.
When it comes to how many tables I had, product layout on tables, and how I positioned the tables in the booth, I learned my first year that it’s better to have fewer decorative environmental pieces and more product. If that means one less table, that’s fine. There’s no rule saying I have to use all 3 of my folding 6ft tables AND my folding round at every event I go to. For this one, I stuck with two 6ft tables, one tabletop mannequin, and two standing mannequins. The weekend before the faire, I set everything up including my canopy’s skeleton for a dry run of sorts. I laid out my tables and chairs, set up my baskets & crates, brought out my mannequins, and fiddled with the layout until I found one that I really liked. What I ended up going with was my two tables on opposite sides of my booth and the chairs at the back. On one table was exclusively my green tablecloth, blood red stained crates and product laid out or displayed on them. The other table had my black leather side across the top of the green tablecloth, my tabletop mannequin with green ivy wrapped around the base for some visual interest, and four baskets: DIY earring kits, mug frogs, skirt hikes, and bags of leather scrap.
From there, I set up both standing mannequins at my “entrance” to my booth, one on either side. My male mannequin had on a set of the aforementioned croc embossed pouches, matching mug frog holding a cast iron lock and key set, and a baldric with a plastic toy sword for display. My green female mannequin had on a white chemise with a white underskirt, green overskirt, brown leather belt, mug frog with a wooden mug displayed on it, and a skirt hike with the green skirt hiked up to show off the white skirt underneath.
One thing I was not expecting was the number of people asking if I would sell my display pieces (sword, mugs, cast iron keys) and the costumes on my mannequins. I didn’t sell the sword because currently this faire doesn’t have any rules about weapons (real or plastic toys) and I was NOT about to be the idiot who caused a problem. Also didn’t sell the lock & key set because I’m way too attached to that, but I did sell both wood mugs, all of my belts off my mannequins which I hadn’t initially intended to sell, and of course the turquoise top.
I suppose that’s another thing that I’ll need to consider for next year: costume pieces. Corey had a great idea for the mugs in that I could buy the wood ones for relatively cheap (they’re roughly $10 apiece), then get a custom brand made and brand the mugs with various thematic designs, such as my logo, sword and shield, dragon, or other designs. I might also buy a handful of skirts and chemises to sell, but if anything, it would exclusively be plain white chemises and solid colored skirts. That doesn’t really fit my whole anti-fast fashion preference, so I’ll really have to think about that one.
Overall, the ren faire was an exceptional success this year. With yet another one under my belt and yet more lessons learned, I’m more excited than ever for next year!