Sewing Shows – Small Biz Behind The Scenes

October 10, 2024

Hey everyone, Laura checking in here for some Small Biz behind the scenes real talk.

Yvann and Laura at The Creative Craft Show Farnborough 2024

Sewing shows…

They’re great, right?

Small businesses get to show their wares to hundreds (or even thousands) of potential customers, and shoppers get to see all kinds of craft businesses under one roof.

They sound great, on the tin, but for us at least, we are calling time on them (sort of….).

After a year of dipping our toe in the water in 2023, and another year of really going for in-person selling this year, we’ve decided to take a break on these big sewing shows for a while. There is one notable exception – so frequenters of Thread Festival at Farnham Maltings do not fear, we shall be returning to this show (if I remember the paperwork this year!).

So why are we doing this? Well, there are a few main reasons:

They’re just sooo expensive!
These big shows charge upwards of £1500 for what can only be described as a cupboard of space. When you include travel, food and wages where applicable, they are such a huge investment of capital. We’ve decided we’d rather invest elsewhere in the business on things like new products and resource!
Honestly, we just don’t make the sales.
For real honestly – at Stitch festival this year we barely made back our stall fee. Part of that is inherent to our business – we sell low value items and need to make a lot of sales to make back the investment – part of that is on us too – our stall design needs work and we need to make sure that if and when we return to the big shows, we need to make sure we can make new people want to come and see what we are all about! We realistically don’t have the time to do that right now.

Our stand at The Creative Craft Show Farnborough 2024

3. They take SO much time.
We run this business alongside busy family lives and taking 4 days out of day-jobs/parenting to attend these shows is a huge commitment. And it isn’t just the show days either – it’s the weeks of prep/manufacturing/packaging in the lead up. I think my husband has just about had enough of the front room being piled high with boxes and packages for the entire month of Feb! And then it’s the exhaustion after each day, and the few days that follow.

4. They are super stressful!
We have had real drama in launching new products at Stitch festival the last two years (who can forget washi-tape-gate) and I’m not sure the Specky crew can handle that again – I definitely feel the pressure of being able to take something new to a big show and alongside the other business work we have on, its just a bit too much for us right now.

I’ll confess that in the social media buzz of the run up to The Knitting and Stitching show, there is a tinge of sadness that we won’t be there. It is so much fun meeting everyone and chatting through your purchases, plans and project ideas! And we will definitely miss that. But maybe we can keep chatting online instead? Let us know what you think of sewing shows – we’d love to hear!

And in the meantime, we’ve decided to offer 15% off everything in store (except subscriptions, remnant packs and gift cards) for the duration of The Knitting and Stitching show – so whether you’re attending the show or not, you can make the most of some retail therapy in the comfort of your own home.

Category: In Person Shows