Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 14,140
I often see threads titled "First Show" or something similar. A knife maker is heading out to try his hand at displaying and selling his wares for the first time.
I've been doing this a long time and I wanted to make some suggestions to folks contemplating this.
First, I would suggest look for other shows besides knife shows. Find a niche and get known in that niche for your knives. Are you a hunter, a fisherman? What do you do and have expertise at? Make knives for the crowd you know and sell them at shows they go to.
Second, have other things to sell besides knives. Do you make great sheaths? Bottle openers, turn pens etc. If these items are your niche related all the mo better. Often you'll get a customer come into your booth or by your table and they can't quite see dropping that couple three hundred it takes to get one of your knives but they'll drop $35- 50 ish. If ya don't have something they want in that price range they will drop that money with somebody else. If they like the quality and usefulness of that item they just got from ya, they'll be back for a knife. Seen it.
I know Stacy shares these ideas and follows this strategy (he's written about it before and posted about shows he's done) and other successful makers do too.
Here's a write up on a show we did a couple of weekends ago. Knife show? Heck no biggest ranch roping competition there is. I took 42 knives and came back with 14. Not often that happens at a knife show.
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/tour-of-horsewright-knives-at-the-pro-am.1528947/
Page 1 sets the scene and page 2 covers some of the booth stuff.
I was struck by how many folks there already had my knives and were carrying them but then we sold a bunch too. Guys that already had em bought more. Cowboying and ranching is my niche market. I've competed at this event 3 out of the previous 4 years it had been held. Somebody comes in looking at a knife and they say they want it for task A on the ranch they know that I know what task A is and what knife works well for it. Find that niche for you.
Knife shows are great but broaden your market. Just some advice from an old guy.
I've been doing this a long time and I wanted to make some suggestions to folks contemplating this.
First, I would suggest look for other shows besides knife shows. Find a niche and get known in that niche for your knives. Are you a hunter, a fisherman? What do you do and have expertise at? Make knives for the crowd you know and sell them at shows they go to.
Second, have other things to sell besides knives. Do you make great sheaths? Bottle openers, turn pens etc. If these items are your niche related all the mo better. Often you'll get a customer come into your booth or by your table and they can't quite see dropping that couple three hundred it takes to get one of your knives but they'll drop $35- 50 ish. If ya don't have something they want in that price range they will drop that money with somebody else. If they like the quality and usefulness of that item they just got from ya, they'll be back for a knife. Seen it.
I know Stacy shares these ideas and follows this strategy (he's written about it before and posted about shows he's done) and other successful makers do too.
Here's a write up on a show we did a couple of weekends ago. Knife show? Heck no biggest ranch roping competition there is. I took 42 knives and came back with 14. Not often that happens at a knife show.
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/tour-of-horsewright-knives-at-the-pro-am.1528947/
Page 1 sets the scene and page 2 covers some of the booth stuff.
I was struck by how many folks there already had my knives and were carrying them but then we sold a bunch too. Guys that already had em bought more. Cowboying and ranching is my niche market. I've competed at this event 3 out of the previous 4 years it had been held. Somebody comes in looking at a knife and they say they want it for task A on the ranch they know that I know what task A is and what knife works well for it. Find that niche for you.
Knife shows are great but broaden your market. Just some advice from an old guy.
Last edited:
