Ok so I started a farmers market in April. We do it the last Sunday of every month (but took off Aug- Oct bc of the heat). It’s free to everyone. I don’t charge for booths or parking or anything, I just do it bc I want to support our local community. It’s basically an open air market on the acreage I have my wellness center on.
The problem I’m having is that the vendors are never happy with the amount of foot traffic.
We get maybe 50-100 people coming through if weather cooperates and there aren’t any other big events going on.
Other details-
We live 15 min away from a bigger city where they have huge markets and tons of foot traffic. We are located in the country but outside of what most people consider a small “ghetto” (not my words, theirs)smaller town that’s the red headed stepchild of the bigger city.
I put out ads on FB and IG and spend my own money to advertise even though it’s a free event.
I give shoutouts to each vendor on my own business page and post little videos on TikTok as well.
Most but not all vendors, share these ads to try and build awareness.
If I decide to do it again, how could I get more foot traffic for the vendors?
the further away from the population you get the less people are eager to go to a farmers market…so you must make it some sort of destination for people want to come to the country…our farmers markets incorporate food trucks which do well.