← Craft Fair Packing Checklist
The packing question isn't really "what might I need?" — pack for that and you'll need a van and a porter. It's "what does a day of selling actually consume?" Seven categories cover it, and a handful of unglamorous items do most of the rescuing.
Gazebo weights — outdoor organisers will tell you about the year someone's gazebo took off; be the stall they don't tell stories about. The float — see our float guide; card readers haven't killed the £10-note-for-a-£7-item problem yet. Tape, scissors, safety pins — the fix-it kit gets used at every single fair, always for something you couldn't have predicted. A charged power bank — your phone is now your till; treat its battery like stock. Layers — village halls are refrigerated in June, marquees double as greenhouses in October.
Your full product range (bring depth of your best 60–70%, not breadth of everything); elaborate props that take 40 minutes to assemble (you'll stop using them by fair three); a card-only setup with no cash plan; and anything you'd genuinely grieve if it got rained on, sat on, or nicked. First fairs are for learning what sells — the boutique staging can come once you know.
You'll barely eat unless food is within arm's reach, so pack eating-with-one-hand food. You'll need the loo exactly when the stall is busiest — befriend your neighbouring stallholder early; watching each other's tables is the fair economy's oldest currency. And your table looks emptier to you than to customers — resist the urge to cram; gaps read as "selling well", not "sparse".
Last in, first out: tablecloth and display go in last so they come out first, stock in the middle, the fix-it kit somewhere you can reach without unpacking. Tick the list as things go in the vehicle, not as they sit by the door — the gap between those two states is where fairs lose their price signs.
General guidance from published stallholder practice, August 2026. CAAC.