Organising a flea market in 10 steps

Flea mar­kets can be chal­leng­ing to plan and organ­ise. From choos­ing the venue to the lay­out of the space to com­mu­ni­cat­ing the flea mar­ket and obtain­ing the nec­es­sary per­mits, etc., there are many ele­ments to con­sid­er.

Such an event is organ­ised months in advance. We help you not to for­get any­thing.

1. Choose your venue

You can organ­ise your flea mar­ket in the city or town of your choice. How­ev­er, it is advis­able to choose a place that is used to wel­com­ing the pub­lic or a reg­u­lar flea mar­ket venue.

You can also hold your flea mar­ket in a par­ty hall, a gym, a park or a square. Bear in mind that it is impos­si­ble to pre­dict the weath­er sev­er­al months in advance, but you can make sure you have a plan (tents…) to be able to deal with bad weath­er if need­ed.

2. Notify the municipality about your flea market

Some per­mis­sions are need­ed to organ­ise a flea mar­ket in a town or vil­lage.

Whether you will occu­py pub­lic space or not (but espe­cial­ly in the first case), noti­fy the city coun­cil well in advance of your inten­tion to organ­ise a flea mar­ket and ask for all the infor­ma­tion on the nec­es­sary per­mits and pro­cess­ing times.
Make sure you have per­mis­sion to occu­py the space and also to make sales. Take spe­cial care with these for­mal­i­ties to avoid pos­si­ble fines.

You may even find out about oppor­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion or spon­sor­ship you had­n’t thought about.

3. Organise and number the sales points

Now that you have cho­sen the loca­tion for your flea mar­ket and obtained the nec­es­sary per­mits, you can start plan­ning the gen­er­al lay­out of your event.

Before you start con­tact­ing pos­si­ble par­tic­i­pat­ing ven­dors, you need to take care of these two things:

• The divi­sion and num­ber­ing of the stalls or booths (A, B, C or 1, 2, 3…).
• The loca­tion of each stall and the ser­vices you will need on-site (food truck, tick­et office, enter­tain­ment stalls…).

4. Where to place ancillary services

Like any event, a flea mar­ket requires care­ful prepa­ra­tion and good organ­i­sa­tion.

Con­sid­er the loca­tion of the dif­fer­ent ser­vices you will offer dur­ing your mar­ket, such as the infor­ma­tion booth, park­ing and emer­gency ser­vices.

You also need to think about where to place the dif­fer­ent actors in your mar­ket:

• Where will the bars and food stalls be locat­ed?
• Where will the host stage be locat­ed?
• ll you set up an infor­ma­tion point?
• Where would it be most ben­e­fi­cial to place the aid sta­tion?
• Are you going to set up a chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment stand?
• How can you organ­ise every­thing so that vis­i­tors can move around unhin­dered?
• Etc.

Organise food and beverage services

Plan in advance the dif­fer­ent types of food you will offer so that there is some­thing for every­one: bar­be­cue, veg­e­tar­i­an alter­na­tives, chips, hot dogs, can­dyfloss, can­dy, crisps, etc.

Food and drink stalls are also essen­tial to gen­er­ate income and bal­ance the total costs at the end of the mar­ket. So take the time to choose, book and plan your stalls and sup­pli­ers care­ful­ly. Final­ly, con­sid­er imple­ment­ing a cash­less pay­ment sys­tem to facil­i­tate all trans­ac­tions.

5. Have the right equipment ready

Although it is dif­fi­cult to pre­dict the num­ber of vis­i­tors to your mar­ket, it is essen­tial to pre­pare the nec­es­sary mate­r­i­al: bench­es, tables, speak­ers, lad­ders, mar­quees…

6. Hire cleaning services

Don’t for­get to install waste bins for your waste and that of the exhibitors (bars, food stalls, etc.).

You can also call the town hall to find out if clean-up crews are avail­able on the day of your mar­ket to clean up the space at the end of the day.

This may cost more, but it will often save you much more valu­able time.

7. Don’t forget to organise entertainment activities

What would a flea mar­ket be with­out a good atmos­phere, with enter­tain­ment for adults and chil­dren? You can include spe­cif­ic stalls, DJs, inflat­a­bles, enter­tain­ers, a raf­fle, bin­go and much more!

8. Pay attention to security

As in the organ­i­sa­tion of any event, secu­ri­ty is a cen­tral ele­ment that can­not be neglect­ed.

You can dis­cuss this point with the munic­i­pal­i­ty to col­lab­o­rate with police, munic­i­pal offi­cers, etc., dur­ing your mar­ket. The ulti­mate goal is to organ­ise a safe and secure event for vis­i­tors and exhibitors.

9. Use an online registration system for vendors

Online book­ing, even for flea mar­kets, is one of the most effi­cient and fastest ways to man­age exhibitor and ven­dor reg­is­tra­tions. In gen­er­al, exhibitors are used to book­ing online their space in the mar­ket and it’s the eas­i­est solu­tion for you as the organ­is­er.

10. Communicate about your market

If you have a web­site or social media, don’t for­get to update them fre­quent­ly to attract vis­i­tors and ven­dors. Include the venue, date and stall rental rates, if nec­es­sary, so every­one can find all the infor­ma­tion they need in just a few clicks.

Man­age your online reg­is­tra­tions and the organ­i­sa­tion of your flea mar­ket with Weezevent!

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