Holiday Crafter's Fair - San Jose Flea Market

This is a yearly event held in the Pavillion building at the San Jose Flea Market, PRESENTLY located at 1590 Berryessa Rd.

We all are looking for events in November and December and this might not be a bad event for vendors. We have done it perhaps 5 times over a number of years, more recently 2 years ago. Rich and Susana do a decent job and have had the show for quite awhile. This show may or may not work for everybody, The price is great..$39 for the first, $19 for the second, etc. Quite a bit of advertising and they do have signs and banners at the Flea Market directing people over there.

You must take into mind, that this event is held at a gigantic flea market and sometimes, there are quite a bit of people strolling around. If the weather is bad...raining, cold, etc., then people seek refuge inside the building and shop around, On the other hand, if you have the other extreme, beautiful sunny days, then people somewhat avoid going in and it can be quite slow. I know a number of vendors that do the show and some do decently but much of their success depends upon their return customers who stop by for Christmas gifts. I think that by now, you have probably noticed that there are 'slight' problems with the economy and this has unfortunately been a disaster to many events and vendors. This is a hit or miss event... it gets slow sometimes, but I recommend doing it just for the price alone,..... very reasonable. The bottom line for me is that people can buy similar items out in the actual flea market area cheaper. If you have unique items, true A&C and certain jewelry items, then it will be worthwhile. It wouldn't be hard to get your 10X booth fees here.

I have had good shows here and bad ones too, A couple years ago, I had two spaces and did fair. Not great. Somewhat slow most of the time. I had both canopies up and also had the back of my canopies covered up and I really didn't have great lighting inside. There was an Indian lady located in back of me selling all kinds of stuff. On Saturday, she actually hung a lot of things on the back of my canopy....without asking, of course. Never in my 16 years had I ever had somebody do that. So, because she had all this garbage hanging from the back of my booth, it made things even darker inside. On Sunday, I decided that I would take down all my covers in order to get more light inside and to get them out of the way, I went over to the lady and explained to her that she would have to remove her items from the back of my canopy. She got mad.....she tried to tell me that is part of her space and I couldn't tell her to take them down. At first, she REFUSED to take them down and I told her again. Finally, I walked over to her and told her that she has 10 minutes to get her things down. She got mad and had enough gall to bring the promoter over and tell them. Made a complete jack ass and a half out of herself (again). I told the promoters that she now had two minutes to take her stuff down and that was that. They made her take down. Can you imagine how idiotic something like that is?

So, there you have it,. If you are a vendor looking for an event to do during the weekend of Novmber 15-16, I'd give it a shot. You can drive in on Friday to set up, but getting out of there Sunday evening is a different story. Quite difficult as there are a number of uncooperative people that make it difficult and it can get very tricky maneuvering your way around the flea market attempting to get inside the building,

If yo are interested in this event, you can contact Rich Alvari and/or Susana del Rosario at phone number 408 453-1110 x215. Do not call the actual Flea Market...this is Rich's & Susana's event. It's also listed in Craftmaster.