Here are a few reasons that craft fairs are so important to the crafters, the customers, and the community.
- Craft fairs save dying arts by giving leatherworkers, woodworkers, textile weavers, and other artisans a venue to show their wares.
- Crafts sold at craft fairs are made with love (not underpaid labor).
- By purchasing goods at a craft fair, you are supporting people rather than corporations.
- When you purchase from a craft fair, you can know that the product you are buying is unique.
- Visiting a craft fair is a chance to meet local artists and appreciate their creativity rather than visiting a mall filled with the mass-produced merchandise.
- Handcrafted items will usually last longer; in fact, they may become heirlooms.
- By purchasing crafts at an art fair, you are fostering creativity in your hometown.
- Crafts sold at craft fairs celebrate the diversity and culture of the community.
- Purchasing from craft fairs supports local entrepreneurs and the local economy. By buying at home, you keep that money at home.
- Buying goods at local fairs supports local art events and encourages your community to host more events like it in the future.
Share this list with friends and other crafters to encourage others to buy and sell local.
Comments
To be a bit "devils advocate" ... Responses to your list of reasons:
1) Agreed
2) After doing this for a long time, are you sure it is love and NOT underpaid labor? How many hours for so little profit?
3) Corporation is made of people. Merely a difference in liability & taxes.
4) with sooooo, much copying I might question this.
5) with a lot of the Buy/Sell in the shows, nowadays, mass-produced seems to be prevalent. Especially in certain mediums.
6) Agreed
7) Why assume the artists / crafters are only local people? Nobody travels to the shows?
8) Partially -- Again about travel.
9) Don't know if the participants are local or traveled. Also negates the idea of going to a fair if one is not at their hometown. What if the travalled participant, makes the sales but does not purchase / spend locally?
10) More? Just what we need. 70 fairs in a 52 week year.
Cindy Welch, if the only good thing about Craft Fairs was keeping things out of landfills, that would be good enough for me. I try very hard to find a new owner for things I don't want.
But, as we can see above, there are many other good reasons to shop at craft fairs.
For someone like me who upcycled and repurposes things, it keeps those items out of the landfills, at least a little longer.
Well said Troy. I wish promotors would inclued it in their handput literature.