Vending Opportunities in NYC/Northeast Sept-Oct?

Jewelry Discussion
1

Aloha One and All! Long time lurker, first time poster. (Please be
gentle :slight_smile: My girlfriend is a flameworker and makes fairly high-end
handcrafted glass jewelry with gold and silver accents. (Her
specialty is miniature perfume bottle pendants)

We have a thriving full-time business selling direct here on Maui
through our local weekly Swap Meet and twice monthly Craft Shows as
well as our only annual Juried Craft show.

We’ll be visiting the Northeast in the NYC area from mid September
through mid October and we would love to find out about worthwhile
vending opportunities.

Obviously this is too short a notice to make it into the juried shows
with application deadlines, though the Lincoln Center show on in
September said they would gladly add us to their waiting list.

While I have no doubt that most of the higher end shows are booked
many months in advance, here on Maui we’ve found that because the
work we are showing is so unique we can do very very well at shows
such as our local Swap Meet provided there’s enough foot traffic.
(Granted, on Maui one out of two attendees is a tourist with
disposable income which may contribute to our uncommon success… I’m
not sure such venues are as lucrative elsewhere.)

We’d be interested in hearing about any worthwhile vending
opportunities that happen on a regular basis within a 3-4 hour drive
of NYC… or special one off events that we might have a chance of
getting into on short notice in September/October.

I’ve already compiled a quite intimidating list of possible venues
and was hoping we could tap the collective wisdom of the community
for advice.

We’ve found that our target customer falls into the following
categories: (in order of importance)

  • Buyers of unique handcrafted jewelry. (you know… the kind that
    loves having something no one’s ever seen before)

  • Lovers of Glass, both contemporary and classic.

  • Perfume bottle collectors.

  • Bottle collectors.

With this in mind does anybody have any experience or advice with the
following venues:

  • NYC street fairs put on by Clearview Festival Productions, Mardi
    Gras Productions, or Mort & Ray Productions. (Between the 3 there is
    one or more street fairs almost every single weekend in NYC)

  • Annual Autumn Crafts Festival at Lincoln Center (is it worth being
    on the waiting list?)

  • Sugarloaf Craft Festivals (Specifically the Fall Gaithersburg &
    Timonium MD shows, and the Fort Washington PA show)

  • The Artrider Park Avenue Armory and Lyndhurst Castle Shows (Waiting
    list opportunity here as well)

  • Annex Antiques Fair & Flea Market

  • The Annex at Columbus Circle

  • Greenflea at 77th and Columbus (I think there’s another one as
    well)

  • Soho Antiques Fair, Collectibles & Crafts

Any personal insights would be gratefully appreciated!

Mahalo! (Thank you)
Dante