Market days
Events, functions and fundraising activities
Over the years, local craft and farmer’s markets have been growing in their popularity. People love to find boutique goods and homemade products.
Bringing the ‘market’ trade and business to your club is a lucrative and fairly easy thing to do, all you need is a little planning.
A market day is a simple and effective fundraising concept. Clubs allow members and the general public to hold pre-purchased stalls where they sell goods to buyers (your club’s audience and community).
Substantial volunteer staff will be required to help run the day, as well as help sell stall places in the lead up to the event.
Why a Market Day?
This is a great fundraiser to use when you are hoping to collect fundraising dollars from the wider community. With great promotion you may find people external to your club might like to have their own stall or come along to shop.
It can also become a great annual community event that is a highlight in the community calendar.
When should I hold this fundraiser?
While this fundraiser can be held at any time throughout the year, it is important to take into account the weather and the use of your club grounds or carpark. It is also a good idea to avoid long weekends or school holidays if your club has many families that go away at these times of the year.
Key Activities
These are the tasks you will need to consider assign to volunteers at our club:
Before the Day
- Contact your council to organise the necessary permits and permission
- Organise where the day will be held and how many stalls will fit in the space
- Sell stall places
- Organise a Volunteer roster for the day
- Promote the day in your club’s newsletter, on social media, you website and around the club.
- Promote externally to the wider community.
On the Day
- Organise your volunteers and run through how the day will run.
- Have signage so drivers know where to park.
- Ensure all stall holders have arrived and are in the correct spaces.
- Have Fun!
After the day
- Publicly thank everyone involved.
- Announce the amount of money raised in club newsletters, on social media, website and around the club.
Who can help?
It is important to engage your members and community to help in the running of your fundraiser.
For a market day, you could approach them to help:
- Promote and sell the stall places
- Help secure sponsors for any prizes (for example a lucky door prize or raffle)
- Help organise any other additional fundraising activities
- Help logistically on the day
Recruiting your people
It is important to create a culture of volunteering at your club to help not only with fundraising but also across the day to day running of your club. For more on how to create this at your club, click here.
Using technology to making it easier
You may like to consider using technology to reduce the workload on your volunteers and increase your fundraising dollars. For an event like Market Days, you may like to sell tickets using a platform like TryBooking.
TryBooking lets you sell tickets, take payments and donations for events online.
This takes care of a great deal of the work that is usually left to volunteers and automates the ticket selling process.
You can set up and customise your own event page and a unique URL in minutes. This lets you easily share the event online and engage members and supporters. Your club may also like to use social media, email newsletters and your club website to promote the event.
Financial Considerations
Funds are raised from the fees charge per stall. This may be between $30-$100 depending on your expected crowd.
The revenue you expect will be dependent on the amount of stalls you can fit in your area and the amount of places you can fill.
Regular markets can build up a real following and become very lucrative over time.
Upfront costs and considerations to take into account include the costs for your signage, marketing and promotion strategy. Parking management and organisation from volunteers may also be required.
There is a risk of wet weather impact on an outdoor setup. There is also the risk of losing stall owners over time if you do not produce good numbers of clientele to purchase goods.
If you are hoping to make this a regular event it is important to focus on building a loyal following and show both sides, suppliers and buyers that you are committed to persisting with this event.
The great thing about a market days is it is the perfect to host secondary fundraisers like Sausage Sizzles, raffles, club membership and club merchandise sales. Food and drinks sales through the canteen are another great revenue raiser for the day.
Promotion
Market days appeal to the whole community and not just your club community. Clubs could promote the event in community resources like the local radio and newspaper as well as a flyer-drop to mailboxes and businesses in the local area.
On top of this, clubs should always promote to their own members via the club website, newsletter and social media pages and can encourage their members to participate either as buyers or sellers.
Communication considerations
Effective communication of your market day is important to its success. You can use social media to build excitement, sell tickets/stalls and countdown to the day.
You can also live stream the event on the day so that those in your community that can’t attend can be part of the event.
Social, Moral and Ethical Considerations
Environmental Impacts
It is important to consider whether where you are planning to have the stalls will have an environmental impact. It is also important to ensure you have volunteers to help with the rubbish clean up during and after your event to ensure we look after our community spaces.
What can go wrong? (Risk Management)
Financial Risks
There are obvious financial risks if enough stalls aren’t sold or funds being raised by other means and set up costs are more than is made.
Participant Safety
The health and wellbeing of those who attend your event should be a focus at all times. It is important that your club takes time to consider all possible risks and how to minimise these.
Weather
The weather can make the day difficult to run should their be extreme heat or extreme rain. Alternative arrangements should be discussed and decided on prior to the day should they be necessary.
Licenses and Permits
It is imperative your club work with your local council when organising a market day as many factors need to be taken into consideration including neighbours, traffic and food and drink regulations.
Do not run this type of event without consulting with your local council, they are there to help and support your club.
Additional Factors to consider
Stalls
It is important to mark out your stall spaces clearly and provide a label that states who the stall space belongs to or a number so that stall holders know where to go. Try not to jam stalls in too close to each other and don’t forget to leave space for foot traffic.
Traffic Management
It is vital your club has a traffic management plans to ensure vehicles can get in and out of your event and park safely and without incident.
Goods for Sale
Be clear about the goods allowed for sale. It is illegal to sell certain goods without a permit and be careful with those trying to sell pirated or illegal goods.
Public Liability Insurance
Public liability insurance is required for you to undertake this event. Consider the policy and ascertain if your policy covers you for this event.
Additional Revenue Opportunities
Additional revenue opportunities include; raffles, canteen revenue, bar revenue, side stalls and rides.
Disclaimer
This procedure should be treated as a guide only. Your club should seek advice specific to the needs of your club and event. Seek further details from authorities and service providers; especially in regards to insurance, licences, permits, spectator and participant safety.