Saturday 12 January 2013

Kitchen Table Talent & Pop-up Market

If you read the UK Country Living magazine, you may be aware of their Kitchen Table Talent awards, which has turned into an annual event in the magazine.  It seems they've taken the idea a step further...

The Country Living fair is quite a prestigious event, and usually costs quite a lot to exhibit at.  However, they are offering spaces on their pop-up market, especially designed for new entrepreneurs - for free.  It's part of promoting kitchen table talent - those people who sew, paint, sculpt, crochet, knit - and otherwise make wonderful things, maybe already starting to turn them into a little business.

If you are interested in applying for a space at the market, you can find out more on the Country Living website.  Your craft mustn't be your main source of income, you can't have been featured in national media and you can't have exhibited at Country Living previously.  They're not accepting food, drink or beauty products and you must have a physical product to sell.

It's an amazing opportunity and very generous - and I'd love to hear about anyone who takes them up on the offer.

working on the kitchen table

5 comments:

Alice Darkling said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alice Darkling said...

Thank you for posting this - I'm going to apply!

Wendy said...

Excellent! Good luck with it! x

Louise@ElsieMayandBertha said...

A wonderful idea for anyone living in or near London. Even if I managed to get a space, I couldn't afford the train fair or hotel bill that would be required. Also why is it only for those not trying to make their living from craft? Its hard for everyone to get noticed and but even more so if you don't have the luxury of an income. You can't get loans and there's no access to help from the goverment, unless you're young. A business plan is useless if you don't have any capital.

Apologies for the rant, but it is so hard trying to make something of yourself.

Wendy said...

Hi Louise, thanks for your comment.

Actually, it *is* specifically aimed at people trying to make a living from their craft - just not people who are *already* making their main living from it.

I think a business plan is still useful without capital as it can be useful to help you stay on track. You just need to be more resourceful if you don't have capital :-)

I agree it would be hard for people living any distance from London - let's hope they decide to extend this idea to Glasgow and Harrogate for their other fairs.