I have been vending at festivals and events for two years now and I feel like the hardest part is finding events that are worth attending. Google search results are just not specific enough these days. Google shows everything from huge music festivals to small local farmers markets. My best luck has been word of mouth by asking other vendors at events that I attend if they know of any other big events in the area.
How do you find events/festivals that are worth attending? I’ve read suggestions to use festivalnet.com and fairsandfestivals.com but I haven’t tried them out yet.
Any suggestions are welcome, cheers!
Not in the biz, but I have 4 small children and like to observe. Any kid friendly event such as fireworks, Halloween parades, etc. the vendors selling light up toys and bubble guns make a killing. The kids bother the hell out of me until I submit and have to buy 4 way overpriced toys that will be broken by the next daylight.
Kid oriented events and bring the sugar. At least around where I live in Canada.
zapplication.org. any art festival worth attending as a vendor is on there for their application process.
Look at your favorite other vendor at your ideal events, ask them- where do they find their gigs.
What kind of vending? Food, arts/crafts? Are you in a big city or smaller town? What are you currently doing as a vendor?
I sell eco-friendly apparel like beanies, hats, hoodies and shirts. I’m just outside of a decent sized city “Asheville, NC”. I’ve worked quite a few large events within a four hour drive from my home and it’s went incredibly well. Do you have any suggestions on how to find larger events?
I live in the same area. I would do the Big crafty, LEAF festivals, AllGoWest festival, any local farmers market in WNC in the summer time brings in the tourists, Mountain Heritage Day, Spring garden festival in Hendersonville, Springfling in Spartanburg, and downtown Greenville has an art fest which is great too.
Even get in with Bonaroo if possible. Not too far from you.
Thank you so much! I will check all of these out. BTW two festivals that I’ve done locally that you didn’t mention are the Waynesville Harvest Fest and The Whole Blooming Thing in Waynesville. Not sure if you work festivals but you should check those out if you do.
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I’ve been to Asheville a couple times and have friends that live there! I wouldn’t doubt there’s some great festivals downtown! I’m in the food vending (kettle korn/lemonade) so I’m not as well versed as to what shows cater more towards your product but wouldn’t doubt you have an advantage given the amount of indoor shows you can do in the colder months. For me personally, it took me close to 10 years to develop a solid circuit of shows so at this point I’m not actively pursuing new shows. Below are some ways I found solid shows. -festivalnet website but only to find show names and never used the paid service. Once I found the shows I would copy paste them into google and find contact info. I also google image the show name given pics can often show attendance. -news sites sometimes have community calendars I’d look on as well to see what’s going on in that area. -networking with other vendors -city of commerce websites often have shows listed especially if they are organized by the municipality. -I’d search other vendors on social media. Some out there events on their pages which I never do given I don’t want competition knowing where I am. -simply googling city name and festival to keep it vague for better search results. -I’m in the NE but do have connections to NC and at one point was close to moving back. I found a lot of shows in the Eastern part of the state but I don’t know how they stack up to shows I region. At this point every show I work is 20-50k people.
Overall it’s always keeping an eye out. The amount of screen shots on my phones of various events is astounding. I’ll then go and research them. Also, my rule of thumb is never believe a director on average number of attendees. If they say 10k, I’ll go with 1-2k.
Thank you this really helps! I’d love to be able to fill my schedule with events that have 20k-50k attendants. We seem to do really well at music festivals and any festival that is focused on shopping or the outdoors. Harvest Fest in Waynesville, Merle Fest and Bridge Day in WV are some of the big ones that went really well for us. Are there any in the area that you’d suggest checking out?
Definitely networking, as you mentioned, but for me that also includes Instagram. I know so many other local vendors on there, and inevitably they’ll post events I hadn’t otherwise heard about. Start following those event and festival accounts as well, and the algorithm will soon inundate you with ads for more of the same (even though many will be outside of your locale, researching them can help with additional leads.) Your results may vary based on what size community you live in, but this largely works well for me.
You could use Google trends to see how many people are searching for that event and determine which are worth your time based off the volume. Compare the data with previous events over the years. Compare with events and the years you did best.
As others have said, word of mouth from other similar vendors is the best. You can also follow similar vendors on social media and review their previous events. This gave a whole list of events for me to research after checking out their posts/events from the last year. Also the website Eventeny will list events by state. You can signup for weekly alerts.
Tourism offices promote festivals, unless it’s a festival they don’t like. Check out your market area as a tourist would. Use Trip Advisor, chambers of commerce, county web sites, music promoters, or sites specific to your target demographic.