Event Review: West Coast Craft Market

I have now vended at WCC Market in San Francisco 4 times, so I thought I would share my thoughts on the experience. The “Market” version of the West Coast Craft show is a relatively new concept, beginning after the pandemic prevented WCC from hosting their usual indoor show. The market takes place in the same location, Fort Mason Pavilion, but in the parking lot rather than within the building itself. Taking up the same space as Sundays’ farmers markets, WCC Market is smaller and shorter than the traditional WCC show. 

Time

The event takes place on a Saturday, about once a month, from 10am to 3pm. I personally love this time table because Saturdays are usually great sales days and the 5-hour event warrants higher concentrations of traffic. For any event, vendors usually have to tack on a few hours before and after for set up, travel, and breakdown. WCC Market ending at 3pm instead of the more common 5pm means that I can be home in time for a restful evening and a proper dinner.

As for the time of year, I haven’t yet determined what effect it has on sales. So far, I’ve participated in March, April, and December. Here are my numbers for reference:

I think the difference in these numbers is largely attributed to my product offering increasing over time. I’ll have to do a year-over-year comparison and participate in other seasons such as summer to make a more educated guess about which times of year are best for this show.

Location

With Fort Mason Pavilion being somewhat away from particularly busy areas, I often worry about traffic to events at this location. West Coast Craft seems to me to be an organization that does their due diligence in advertising for their events. The great thing about the market, especially when compared to the indoor show, is its outdoor location makes it easy to happen upon. There are a few restaurants at Fort Mason Pavilion that people frequent on the weekends. If they didn’t know the event was happening, they would stumble upon it on the way to brunch. The indoor location of the larger WCC show is slightly harder to come upon by accident since it is in the far most building of the Pavilion.

As with all outdoor events, you have to be prepared to face some weather conditions. For the December ’22 and March ’23 shows, the organizers were kind enough to postpone the show a week due to the stormy weather forecast that predicted torrential downpours. However, their show policy is that the event goes on rain or shine, so I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it being rescheduled when it rains. I do appreciate though that the organizers were taking weather into consideration and letting their vendors know in advance what the plans were regarding the storms.

Regardless of rain, this location does have a higher presence of wind. The last 2 shows that I have done were miraculously wind-free, but usually this location is windy due to its proximity to the water. One of my friends had to take down her tent one time because it was so windy. Definitely come prepared with proper weights for your tent and a wind-resistant set up for your merchandise.

Check out this Instagram video I made last year about how I prepare for wind at outdoor craft fairs.

Audience

While I haven’t done the indoor WCC event, I have attended as a shopper and heard anecdotes from others that have vended there. My assessment has always been that the crowd that attends West Coast Craft is ready to spend money. Typically, the vendors accepted into the indoor show have been on the higher-end of handmade goods (think hand stitched leather and ceramics), so the expectation was set accordingly for the customers. The good thing about the Market is that the organizers have opened up their roster to allow lower-range items to be sold and a wider variety of vendors to be accepted into the show. (Or at least this is my assessment based on the fact that it feels impossible to get accepted to the indoor event but I’ve miraculously gotten into the market).

Combining the usual WCC audience with this newer, more affordable set of vendors has lead to many customers being excited to shop at booths and make purchases. Some events can have the phenomenon of customers just looking but not buying. It’s great when you get to be seen by a lot of people, but also a little disappointing if they’re all “just browsing.” I’d be curious to know what the overlap is between those who attend the indoor show versus the market and if there’s any perceived difference on the customer facing side.

Applications

The fee to apply for the Market is $10, cheaper than the usual $25 for their indoor show. I’m glad this price allows for more people to have even the chance to apply. The shows with non-refundable $50 application fees infuriate me, especially when they definitely took less than 5 minutes to reject my application.

As I mentioned before, it seems that West Coast Craft is more lenient on those they accept into the Market. They also purportedly try to accept different vendors each time so it’s not the same exact show every month. I definitely recommend applying for one of these markets if you’re able. It’s a lower cost way to test if your products do well with this audience.

But as it is with any show, you’ll never know the exact judging criteria. Moreover, I don’t think you should care that much. After a while, I realized how arbitrary acceptances to events can be and I stopped taking it personally (mostly, anyway). I just focus on improving my business, having a strong brand identity, and making great products. If event organizers aren’t able to recognize my talent, their loss! I’ll just find the ones that do.

I hope this helps you determine if West Coast Craft Market is the right event for you! If you liked this post and would like me to continue writing event reviews, you can support me by:

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