We recently stood Leigh Antiques Fair (i.e. we attended as sellers) having never been before even as a buyers. It turned out to be an excellently run event, even if we didn’t do as well as we’d hoped.
More than just a rugby league team!
I grew up in York. As a young teenager our next door neighbours were keen rugby league fans who rarely missed a home game of the mighty(!) York Wasps. Being a fan of the matches shown on BBC Grandstand (remember Eddie Waring anyone?), I was asked me if I’d like to go with them? I jumped at the chance. So, for about five years, every couple of weeks I stood on the often freezing terraces at the Clarence Street ground watching with dismay and (occasionally) delight as York battled against just about every other semi-professional team in England (fully professional Rugby League was to come later).
Even at it’s highest levels, rugby league was not a glamourous sport. There was however a little mystique about the fact that half the teams we played came from “over the Pennines”. That of course usually meant Lancashire, although some were from Cumbria. To me, Cumbria was a distant, mountainous region that an uncle of mine lived in. He worked on a BBC transmitter and went hill walking a lot. By definition, that meant Cumbria and my uncle were both very cool. Lancashire on the other hand was the ancient foe. In truth the places the teams came from were mostly somewhere I’ve only heard of because they had a team. As to the actual geography, even as an adult, I was none the wiser.
A new home from home
Forty five years later, we now find ourselves with family in Lancashire and the offer of B&B. They live in the bit of Lancashire populated by the places I knew of from my rugby following childhood. When I realised this I was in for two very big surprises: firstly just how close many of the rugby towns are to each other and secondly, just how small small of them they are. Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, Leigh and St. Helens are all so close that Google Maps tells me you could travel between all five grounds and still have change from 30 miles. Leigh, in particular, is no bigger than the size of our nearest town, Evesham. I can’t believe York Wasps were beaten by them so often, or indeed how good they are today.
In need of an antiques fair
When we planned our antiques fair selling for the first half of the year, there was a bit of a gap in March. Late winter is usually a good time for selling at fairs. The car boot season hasn’t started, so the Sunday browsers tend to visit in good numbers. That at least was our hope.
Having browsed the very excellent Antiques Atlas website for a local fair, nothing local seemed very exciting. Fancying a bit of a change, I suggested we head north and try our luck at Leigh. Although we’d never been, there were two things in it’s favour. Firstly we get to stay for free with our family over the weekend and secondly we knew the organisers, Dualco, run a very tight ship.
Dualco run some of the biggest and best known antiques fairs in the north of England. We’ve previously been visitors at their fairs at York, Doncaster and Bolton and we’ve even sold at Bolton so we knew we were in safe hands. I probably wouldn’t normally plan to sell at a fair until I’d been as a buyer first but in this case I was happy to give it a try. A quick call to the organisers secured a pitch (£60 for a single, plus £10 for an extra table) and we were all set.
I was delighted to learn that the venue was a sports hall at Leigh Sports Village, since that’s home to Leigh Leopards rugby league team.
What to take, what to leave behind
Deciding what to take to an antiques fair is always a bit of a challenge. We’re getting much better at packing crates very densely, helped in part by our learned aversion to large items. As we only use a car for transportation we have to be wary of not over doing it.
With just two tables to sell from there was no point trying to take as much as we could. There was also an expectation that the two 6’ tables would be one in front of the other. This is not an arrangement we like but when space is at a premium (as at Bolton) that’s what it has to be. To be clear here, if you pay for a double pitch you get two tables side by side. The choice was ours, we could have spent more to get more space. At some fairs, such as Malvern Flea, a single pitch is 8’ wide. This allow you to make an ‘L’ shape with two tables. This means potential customers to be able to get close to all your stock without having to reach over.
For nearer fairs we always use some collapsible shelving. These give height to the display but also increase the display space. They are a bit of a pain to transport in a car but are worthwhile when you have the tables in our preferred ‘L’ shape. For Leigh we decided against taking them. In the end that might have been a bit of a mistake.
A bit of a lie-in
I’ve usually been pretty good at getting up early but some fairs take this to extreme. Dualco are kind (sensible?) to their traders and start their days at 07:30. Most traders arrive early but the venue doors don’t open earlier. A few familiar traders seem to get an early entry but the public opening is at 09:00. The stall holders don’t mind traders getting in early as there’s nothing makes you happier than an early sale or two.
When the loading bay doors open it’s always a bit of a charge. I don’t really know why, we all have plenty of time! We found our pitch quickly and were delighted to find we’d actually been allocated a 12’ pitch with three tables. This happens from time to time. It’s usually when the trader allocated to pitch next to yours have to cancel. At less popular fairs it’s simply because there’s a shortage of bookings. Either way it’s great news so long as you have plenty of stock and an extra table cloth. We’ve learned over the couple of years we’ve been doing this to make sure we have both.
The venue
The sports hall at Leigh is very good for a fair. Access is brilliant, as befits a location that includes a sports stadium. Parking is easy to find, free and right next to the loading doors for the hall. To the uninitiated these things might sound obvious, but sadly quite a few venues fail in some areas.
Inside there’s plenty of space and plenty of light. We sell at some very poorly lit venues. You don’t need as much light to play sport as you do to make a piece of hand blown glass look good on your stall. Our set up doesn’t yet run to lighting, although it might in future. Lighting is an awkward thing to manage at fairs and few people achieve a good, well lit display. Most table lighting ends up getting in the way or blinding passing browsers.
The space allocated per pitch could have been a lot less and I suspect if the number of traders increased Dualco could get quite a few more people in. The event is advertised “as up to 150 stalls” but I think that’s probably about twice the number we saw. In fairness though the number of tables in use would be about the same, so a buyer sees about the same amount of stock.
I’m getting old and after the rather strenuous activity of carrying the stock from the car, if the hall is cold it can make for an uncomfortable day. Leigh has heating and the organisers were happy to pay for it. A few other fairs could take note.
Roll on opening time!
Opening time came around almost unnoticed. It’s rare to see a rush as the doors open and as we were some distance from the entrance so we didn’t really see the hall beginning to fill. Nonetheless as the morning progressed people began to walk the isles and we could (occasionally) see money changing hands.
A fellow ceramics dealer once told us that his buyers don’t come out until 11:00. There’s some truth in this. Our pricing really aimed at selling to other dealers. We have to wait for the general public to turn up and frankly 09:00 on a Sunday morning is a couple of hours too early for most people.
By 11:00 we’d made a couple of modest sales and a rather nice Royal Crown Derby paperweight. These are a part of our core stock. It’s always good to feel that we’re selling what we want to sell rather than items we bring along hoping to help to cover our costs.
We also managed to sell the last two of a set of ceramic musical boxes in the form of Beatrix Potter figures. They were good items but having bought eight in a single lot it was great to sell the last ones. I’d managed to dismantle some that were not working correctly and had been able, with the aid of some sowing machine oil, to get the mechanisms running nicely. There’s a sense of satisfaction to selling something that you have been able to restore back to a saleable condition. You rarely make enough to cover the cost of your time. Thankfully we’re not trying to make a living from this.
Where are the buyers?
By 11:00 we were starting to get a bit worried. The hall had filled up reasonably but it’s often the noise level that offers the best measure of people arriving. Leigh felt pretty subdued. In an ideal world you want someone at or near your stall most of the time.
People are quite shy about standing looking at a stall when they feel they are the only ones around. As a seller it’s often good to either stand well back or try to engage in a bit of general conversation. I like to try to talk to people, especially people who appear to be on their own. People visiting on their own are very often glad of the interaction. It occasionally helps to get a sale but more than anything it passes the time for both parties. Sometimes, and more often than I would have guessed, you find a passing browser knows a good bit more about items in your stock than you do. I’ve learned a lot through starting up a conversation.
Early afternoon blues
By about 12:00 we’d covered the cost of our pitch but it clearly wasn’t going to be a great day. Visitor numbers start to fall after about 1:00 pm. This is usually when the early start catches up with you. One trader on an adjacent stall actually fell asleep. With his head on his chest, he snored away loudly for a good half an hour. It’s not to be recommended but we all felt a bit the same.
Barring a late sale you just hope someone will come back to get something they saw earlier before going home. I’d seen a few sales being made but a nearby trader selling art glass seemed to be having a bad day. When I asked, he conceded he’d not sold anything. Surprisingly, he seemed quite upbeat. He’d had a really good day at a different fair the day before, but it’s a depressing experience having made the effort. I think he did manage a sale before the end of the day though.
All you need is one customer
You never know where your next sale is coming from and sometimes just one customer can change a day. In our case the day changed when two ladies came up to look at the Royal Crown Derby paperweights we had on show. It turned out one of them had a friend who wanted to collect Australian animals and we happened to have a very nice Kangaroo. Frustratingly we also had in our shop stock two different designs of Koala but they were 150 miles away.
Although there was a fair but of discount given, between the Kangaroo and a few other pieces of ceramics our one big customer of the day made the whole experience very satisfying. She was happy to pay cash as well which saved on card fees too (although we’d never turn down a sale on card as the fees are actually very small).
A quiet finish and last hour purchases
There’s a real sense of relief when you get a big sale, especially on a slow sales day. There was never a great footfall although apparently the fair is usually busier.
Packing up early is frowned upon by fair organisers. The last hour or so of most fairs is spent walking around, comparing notes with other traders. Some traders had had a good day, but most were disappointed the way things had panned out.
The first and last hour or a fair is the time when traders tend to buy from each other. Since we tend to sell to overseas visitors and tourists we’re quite unusual and can sometimes be looking for items that have little value to a domestic audience. This allows us to get a few good bargains and it’s a rare show where we don’t go home with a bag full of items we’ve purchased. We don’t really account for these items when we look back at how well we did at a show, but we should. In the case of Leigh we actually bought very well and should make about £100 profit from the items we purchased on the day.
I missed the game
I was delighted to see there was a rugby match on as we left the building to start loading the car . Leigh Leopards were rather hammering Batley Bulldogs, in contrast to their record breaking 0-1 win at Wigan a few weeks earlier! I think my next visit should be to watch a game.
