It’s that time of year again to look back all we did and achieved through 2018.
Firstly THANK YOU to each and everyone of you who visited or took part in any of our fairs or events this year. Without lovely customers and talented stall holders our fairs wouldn’t exist, so it really means the world.
Our year started back in the Spring with two Easter fairs at Patcham and Worthing Charmandean. As previous years these fairs were well attended and full of lovely Spring time creations and treats. Although you may remember it snowed in March this year and it was actually snowing and -2 on the day of our Worthing fair (our fault for booking Elsa the snow queen!). Luckily people still ventured out and we raised over £2,000 for St Barnabas Hospice!
Just a couple of days later we held our first ever pop up shop which was very exciting! It was a week long and at Colonnade House, Worthing town centre. We were blown away but the response from the lovely people of Worthing and how many people travelled to visit our shop. The shop featured almost 20 of our regular makers and exhibited everything from prints, to lampshades, to jewellery and pocket money gifts and buys. We really enjoyed playing shop for a week!
In May we headed back to Brighton Open Market for our 2nd Brighton Fringe Festival special fair. The fair featured almost 50 talented makers and creatives as well as live entertainment on the day and special guests including a princess or two of course. It was very exciting to be part of the prestigious Brighton Fringe festival once again and be featured in their brochure which has a print run of 100,000!
At the end of May we were lucky enough to be invited back to Colonnade House to hold a Spring half term pop up shop. Again this was a week long and featured 20 of our regular makers, with a selection of new ones added from the previous pop up. It was so lovely to meet lots of you in person and to have some returning customers as well.
In September we held our only wedding fair of 2018, returning to Brighton Racecourse for our Happily Ever After Creative Wedding Fair. The venue was filled with talented wedding creatives – everything from dresses, to stationery, to flowers, cake, hen do ideas and lots more. All our sellers are independent and local, we don’t believe in sales people, just real people behind the brands we accept. There were also free craft workshops throughout the day and some wonderful live singers.
Then all of a sudden Christmas season was here again! We started our festive fairs with a big full weekend special at Brighton Open Market in central Brighton. This was our first two day event and it was very exciting to take over the market plaza for a full weekend. Almost 50 of our talented makers filled the market each day selling their festive creations and gifts. We also welcomed a host of live entertainment and special guests including Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Olaf the Snowman, The Theatre Workshop Children’s Choir and many more.
A week later we headed to Patcham Methodist for our festive special and one of our busiest at this venue to date. The fair featured craft workshops, a festive tearoom by Buntson Bakes, face painting and 40+ makers selling their wares. Patcham Silver Youth Band also performed for us.
Our final fair of the year was held on Sunday 2nd December at Worthing Charmandean. Our ‘So This is Christmas‘ fair is held in aid of St Barnabas and we’re very proud that this fair was our highest total raised for St Barnabas to date – £3,392.68!! This takes our total raised for St Barnabas since Dec 2015 to £17,141.26 which we are incredibly proud of – it is already helping make a difference in the hospice.
The fair is our biggest craft fair of the year and featured 70 stalls, cafe, face painting, Magic Martin and live performances from West Sussex Rock Choir, Patcham Silver Band Youth and The Singing Chef. The fair was opened at attended by Worthing Mayor, Arundel Town Crier, The Sussex Ghostbusters, St Barnabee Bee, Santa and his elves!
Wishing you all a magical Christmas and Happy New Year! We’ll be returning from Spring, more details will follow early 2019.
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Always happy to make a guest appearance.
Mr No Stripe, the friendly Stormtrooper.