The library
Everything worth reading before you commit to anything.
Eight documents. Four of them explain how a market day works and what it costs. Two are checklists you take with you. One tells a stallholder what they are taking on, and one tells a local business what underwriting a day actually means.
Every one of these prints. Use your browser's print, and choose Save as PDF if you want to keep or send it. They are built to print properly rather than to be a web page somebody wrestled onto paper.
Before you start
Read first
What running an event actually takes
Every job a market day needs somebody to own, in fifteen departments, the six rules that decide whether it runs smoothly, and the full list of what must exist before the doors open.
Read itRead second
What you are responsible for as lead organiser
The date, the venue, the go or no go, the money that goes out before any comes in, what you owe a stallholder, and what happens if the day does not run.
Read itTake these with you
Checklist · also fillable
Venue checklist
Everything worth asking before you commit to a venue, in the order you would sensibly ask it. Fourteen sections. Fill it in on the spot, not afterwards.
Read or print itChecklist
Organiser responsibilities
The departments written out in full, with a space for a name, a backup and a phone number against each one. The sheet to print and carry.
Read or print itThe venue checklist is also a form. Inside a market day you can fill it in on screen, one record per hall, and the room measurements you take feed the floor space calculator on their own. The printed one is for standing in the carpark with.
Working out the money
For the organiser
How to calculate a stall fee
What a stall fee has to cover, how to work it out from real costs rather than from what feels reasonable, and why the cheap fee is not the kind one.
Read itFor the organiser
Pricing the attendee side
Entry, meals, drinks, the creche and the bundles. What each one has to carry, and what happens to the numbers when you change one of them.
Read itFor the people you are asking
Send to a stallholder
What a stallholder is responsible for
What they are taking on when they book a stall: the fee, the stock, the insurance, the paperwork, the setup and the day itself. Send it with the invitation, not afterwards.
Read itSend to a sponsor
What you are agreeing to as a sponsor
For a local business being asked to underwrite a day. The cap, how the money comes back, what happens if the day is short or cancelled, and the fee that sits inside what they carry.
Read itBoth of these are written to be sent to somebody who is about to spend money. They say the uncomfortable parts out loud rather than leaving them to be discovered, which is the whole reason they exist.
A note on how these look
Four of these documents were written before Market Day Collective had a house brand, so they carry an older look. The words in them are current and correct. They are on the list to be re-set in the current brand, and until then they are worth more readable than matching.