Before you commit to anything
What you are responsible for as lead organiser
The lead organiser owns the date, the venue and the go or no go. Everything else can be handed to somebody, and on a day of any size it should be. These are the things that cannot.
If the day is big enough to have a team, the lead should not also run a department. You need your hands free to decide things and unblock people. On a small day that is unavoidable, and that is fine. Just know it going in.
The parts that are yours, personally
These are not administrative. They are the ones with your name on them in a way that does not come off.
The money that goes out before any comes in
The venue deposit, the insurance, the council application and the first print run all fall due before a single ticket is sold. For a hall sized day that is usually $200 to $1,800, and an outdoor site with marquees and hired toilets is well past that.
Somebody carries that for about eight weeks. If it is not a group or an auspicing body, it is you.
The shortfall, if there is one
If the day comes up short, the creditors still have to be paid. Unless an incorporated body is auspicing your day, that is generally you personally.
This is a plain statement of how the three arrangements differ and it is not legal advice. It is worth knowing which of the three you are in before you sign anything, and worth asking somebody qualified if you are not sure.
The hire agreement
You sign it, so you are agreeing to the access times, the cancellation terms, the state the hall has to be left in and whatever their insurance requires of you and of your sellers.
Read it before you sign it, and ask for it in advance so you can.
The go or no go
Somebody has to name the decision point in advance: the day, the time, and how everybody will be told. Weather, numbers, a venue falling through.
Made late, that call costs money and goodwill. Made on time, it costs neither.
Before the day
- Set the date, choose the venue, and sign the hire agreement
- Appoint every department, and a named backup for each
- Hold the checklist and the countdown, and chase what is late
- Be the single point of contact for the venue
- Name the weather or cancellation decision point, and how everyone will be told
- Approve the stall fee and the attendee prices before anything is published
- Settle anything two departments disagree about, quickly
On the day
- Be findable. Carry a phone and answer it
- Walk the whole site twice: once after opening, once mid afternoon
- Make the calls nobody else is allowed to make
- Keep your hands free. If you are running a stall and the gate at once, you are not leading
After
- Run the debrief within a week, while it is still fresh
- Thank every seller and every volunteer within 48 hours
- See that every invoice is paid, the kitchens are settled and the bond is chased
- Write the note that carries into next year's checklist
What you owe a stallholder
This is the part most first time organisers have not thought through, and it is the one that decides whether anybody comes back.
Inviting somebody to run a stall is asking them to spend money. They pay you a fee, front their own cash, buy inventory, give up a day, and carry whatever does not sell. They are not attending your event. They are investing in it.
So the return has to be there, and getting a venue that makes that possible is your job, not theirs. Ten sellers poked into corners of a small shop with nowhere to park and room for forty people at a time will not give anybody a return on that investment, however good the day feels.
Enough people through the door
A venue with an approved capacity of forty is a venue that caps what every seller can take, all day. The floor space calculator works this out from the hall you are looking at.
Enough room to trade
A pitch they can actually work in, an aisle people can browse without queueing, and somewhere to put the stock that is not under the table.
The amenities they paid for
Parking close enough to carry a crate from, toilets, power where it was promised, water, and somebody who comes when their card reader drops out. The higher the fee, the more of this they are entitled to expect.
The fee follows the service, not the other way round. A day with close parking, good amenities, free drinks and a support team costs more to put on and the stall fee has to say so. A cheap fee at a venue that cannot deliver is not a bargain, it is a seller losing money politely.
And if the day does not happen
You credit the stall fees back, and you credit the customer entry fees back. Every one of them. A stallholder who paid to be there and a family who bought tickets did not take a risk on your day, they paid for something that did not happen.
That is why the refund reserve is decided before any money arrives rather than after, and it is why the two money questions in the capability check are the two that this site will not talk past.