Well do not get discouraged. I had my first show today too. Sold...none. Lots of talk, but all walk. I have a garden show in a few weeks, I hope that goes better!

Our farm market is just 15% crafts. I had a great first day - $250.00, sold just about exclusively to my friends. On the second weekend, no sales but lots and lots of talking. Today I sold a trough and a large birdbath to someone who had told me the second weekend that she was coming back, and a set of 3 bowls. A good day.
I do think that craft fairs are lousy, but any place with gardeners should be good. Our farm market is crawling with gardeners. If I don't go to the provincial garden club yearly meeting (it's 4 hours away), I'll be at the farm market next weekend. It's been raining and windy and 50 degrees all three weekends. And we're under tents. Please Goddess of all 'tufa and concrete, make it sunny.
Someone wants urns, too. I'll have to work on that.
Blooming

Must be catching - my first show - sold two, but day 2 coming up tomorrow. Today was like redhead said, lots of talk but no money coming out of pockets. The one thing everyone was asking for I didn't do ...stepping stones!!
Next time I will have some of everything.

Jilly

Farmers markets do seem to be the place to go. I live in a rural area,and I am trying to keep local. This was my third weekend show. It was sunny and hot, Lots of traffic, but people just strolling, not buying. Still I got a lot of feed back on the items, and a good feel for what was popular. I sold only one empty container. but, the leaves were very popular, sold them all. I sold 'rocks' with indents, that were planted. Called them 'Blooming rocks' sold them all too. Also sold all my 'rocks' with words stamped 'love', 'hope',ect..Stayed away from stepping stones, didn't have any requests for them. Also sold one grot, and my volcano. It was a very good attention getter,quite a hit with the kids, they would make their parents come over to look. esp. when I had incence burning in it. So much fun. So with all the feedback I know where to put my attention in the making of new stuff. I want to concentrate on artistic things that are unique. Didn't make too much $, more than I expected though for such a small town. I think it is going to get better as the season gets going. I'll be there every weekend. At least I made my grocery money for the week. I have you people to thank for the help here.

My friends and I (The Garden Chicks) have sold at about 5 shows. It is really hard to guess outcome - we've had such mixed results. Our best was a 2004 city street Art Show (80+ booths) on Mothers Day, but the 2005 show we only did half as good. (We did win best booth both years!)

We had highest hopes for the yearly Master Gardeners Spring Sale (10,000 people in 2 days) and we only made a third of our best show. People were taking pictures/drawings and asking how to do it, instead of buying. . . . .
We are slated for a Home Garden Tour next weekend and later the Del Rio Vineyards Wine Tasting & Art Show. (To give you some ideas on where to sell) Only taking a dozen or so high-end art pieces. The good thing is we get approached to sell our pieces at specialty events because they are so unique; and that exposure is priceless.

StoneCrone It'a amazing how many people will walk up and say "I can do that myself"
It may be true but my customer is the person who is too busy with other things to make it themselves and I tell them that.

If I decide to sell my stuff my stock answer to those asking how it's done will be. "Take some cement, some sand, add water and hope for the best" :)

tufaenough, I love that answer..I get questions like that too, and comments about how "my aunt or my neighbor or... are making that stuff"."I just downloaded the instructions from the web"is another one.. "Our community college has a class on that." As a result, I have eliminated a lot of the simple containers, stepping stones, from my inventory, and am trying to do the more creative, and complicated pieces that the novice is not necessarily going to be able to do. I have made notes on what is popular here, and moves easily.
Garden of Mu,Thank you,they love the grots.
I knew it was comming, just a matter of time. I went to a local nursery and found stepping stones in the shape of a leaf.Hard to compete with that.
StoneCrone.. good story, you give hope. I've been at this just a short time,am struggling to learn and to produce. It's nice to hear success.

The most hilarious response I got from a nasty 'customer' at a mall show about my stuff was "I can buy this cheaper at store X and it's better made as well."

The only problem was the stuff in Store X was mine and the price was identical.:)

Second Farmers Market today and did much better. About $130 with lots of "are you going to be here next week my husband/wife would just love that". So we shall see what the future brings. Lots of conversation and passing out cards. Also took some things to a Hosta Farm in the area soooooo time will tell.
Paws

Just a thought Paws4pets in regard to your 'HEAVY' comment.
Try using the same amount of perlite or vermiculite instead of sand in your tufa pieces. (I prefer vermiculite because the exposed bits in the finished piece sparkle somewhat like mica does in a piece of rock.)

Doing this will add cost since sand is way cheaper, but you'll find that by doing this, your projects can be made twice as big & still weigh close to half of the originally sized piece using a sand mix.

I have actually used only portland and peat in some projects. Extremely light almost to light but when the dirt/soil is added not to bad. Had several people comment "oh how heavy it must be with concrete in it" I asked them to pick it up, one older lady almost lost her balance picking it up(thats what I need a old lady falling on the ground with a pot on her). Vermiculite does give it a nice speckled look too. Sometimes hard to see but gives it that little extra something.
So far all I have available in Perlite is the stuff at Wal Mart for plants. I need to find the ground fine stuff. Might try my "local" Redi Mix guys.
Paws

Cryogenic is very fine perlite, too fine in fact.
Works well in my recipes but it's the only thing I have to put on a mask for.
It's nasty and impossible to keep out of the air even with gentle handling.
I'm going to try to get the stuff used for building light weight concrete structures. I understand it is like course sand and dust free.