Fairs get booked one enthusiastic application at a time, which is how makers end up doing four November weekends running with a Tuesday-night restock crisis in between. A season planned as a season — count, radius, budget — earns more and costs less skin.
A fair costs three days honestly counted: prep and packing, the day itself, recovery and restock. Once or twice a month is sustainable alongside making; weekly is a job. And stock is the other ceiling — a good fair sells what takes weeks to make, so consecutive weekends mean either thin tables or midnight production. Book the season your making speed can feed, not the one your optimism can.
Travel is a stealth pitch fee. Sixty miles each way is ~£30 of fuel and two hours — on a £25-pitch village fair, you've doubled the cost before unpacking. A workable rule: local (under 30 minutes) fairs need only modest takings to justify themselves; anything over an hour should be a proven event or a big one, because it's carrying travel, time and a 6am alarm on top of the fee. Note distance when you log each fair, and let last year's takings-per-mile teach you your radius.
Add up the season's pitch fees before booking it — £400 of fees needs £400 of extra profit before the season beats staying home. Then spread the risk like a portfolio: a couple of proven bankers, a few solid locals, and one or two experiments (a new town, a bigger event) whose failure the bankers can absorb. All fees committed in one glance is precisely what a tracker's "committed" number is for — and the break-even calculator pressure-tests each fair before you apply.
For most makers, October–December out-earns the rest of the year combined — and the good Christmas fairs close applications in late summer. Plan the season backwards from Q4: lock the Christmas applications first (deadlines tracked, obviously), then fill spring and summer around production capacity. The maker applying to Christmas fairs in October is browsing next year's list.
General guidance from stallholder practice, August 2026. CAAC.