# a month-and-a-half lasting fair!



## Manchy (Nov 16, 2009)

i'm so happy, chamber of crafts (loosely translated  ) approved my application to have a stall in the town center for the Christmas fair! i didn't even dare to hope to get it approved, but this morning in my emails - wow wow wow 
it begins 25th of November and lasts all the time till 10th of January. i know - long time!

what i wish is an experienced soap maker advice on how much approximately will i need for such a long time. i have cp soaps, salt bars, bath bombs, herbal baths, bath salts and a friend of mine that is an experienced lotion maker will make creams, lotions and lip balms. and also a gift boxes of products combined.

some info on the fair. it's in a very center of the 1mil people town, a pedestrian, cafe street. it has 36 little wooden houses, and i'll be in a half of one  to have a stall it was required that your product is handmade in your own production, is traditional or appropriate for Christmas time gifts... i'll be the only one with soaps and bath&body products.

well, i have lots of soaps already cured and many still curing. i think i have around 500 soaps now, which is cured or will be cured in two weeks time. i hope it'll last for two first weeks, and than new soap should be ready. i never did such a big show, and it has me wondering how much should be ok??

any help, advice, suggestion... will be the most appreciated


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## madpiano (Jan 1, 2010)

wow, I would love to know how it went. I bet you are still exhausted, trying to fit this around xmas as well. I have plans to apply for a similar show for next year december, so would really love to hear your experience and how you coped with it. I can imagine it was stressful ?


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## bombus (Jan 12, 2010)

So- Manchy

How did it go? It's January 12! Did you make it through the whole time?


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## madpiano (Jan 30, 2010)

Manchy - did you survive ???

How did it go ???


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## Manchy (May 16, 2010)

sorry guys, i'm so late with my answer!

but, yes it was very stressful, but also ended with very good results. we're definitely participating next year too, and hopefully we'll be better prepared and avoid all the stress.

we have a saying about first times here  so i hope we learned a lot from this and have even better fair next Christmas. i have no special advice, just try to think, think and think about everything you'll need for the fair 

it took us two weeks to be content with how we are prepared, lol. signs, paper bags, bar chairs, buckets, stamp, leaflets, .... all those little things we had to think about and solve at the time, and it was so time consuming, considering that we had to be on the fair 12 hours a day also.


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## madpiano (May 19, 2010)

Glad to hear you survived - tell us more ? How was it doing that fair for the whole time ? Did you ever worry running out of goods ? How did you cope with the weather ? What were the other stallholders like ?


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## Manchy (May 20, 2010)

madpiano said:
			
		

> Glad to hear you survived - tell us more ? How was it doing that fair for the whole time ? Did you ever worry running out of goods ? How did you cope with the weather ? What were the other stallholders like ?



It was two of us, so one day you work, one day you stay at home and produce 

We did ran out of some stuff, but it was ok, because we had many different kinds of soaps, bath salts, fizzies, herbal baths... it always looked full.

We had a little wooden house, and after few weeks we organized well enough to have a gas stove in there. After that it was really great..

Other stallholders had candles, Christmas ornaments, candied fruit, chocolate, cheese, wine, traditional cakes, pottery, jewelery... also, some stallholders really pissed us of - they had crappy ornaments "made in china" (which was completely against the rules of fair). but all in all, it was very nice.

this is how it looks (i found this image on internet, it's not mine). we shared one of the little houses with candle maker:






p.s. now that i write about this, i actually really miss those days


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