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.