For May fairs and May Day festivals

Maypole up by ten. Paperwork done in April.

A May fair is mostly people: stallholders, dancers, a craft tent and a committee of volunteers. Ticket Folk keeps all of them in one place, and sells gate tickets too if you charge.

How it’s usually done

• Stallholder forms arriving by email, post and the village Facebook group
• One committee member holding the volunteer list in their head
• Insurance certificates chased one by one the week before
• A cash tin on the gate and no idea of numbers until the evening

Every stall applies the same way.

Share one link in March. Craft stalls, food vans and charity tables fill in the questions that fit them and upload their insurance. You see every application side by side, with a short summary of each.

• Stall and catering applications in one list
• Public liability insurance kept with each stall
• Approve or decline with a note they can read

A volunteer for every job.

Set up the jobs you need on the day: car park, gate, maypole, litter, teas. Volunteers pick what they’d like to do, and each job shows how many more people you need.

• Jobs that show how full they are
• Approve volunteers in one tap
• A team leader for each team, if you want one

Tickets, if you charge on the gate.

Plenty of May fairs are free to get in. If yours charges, sell adult, child and family tickets online and on the day. Check-in carries on when the field drops off the network.

• Adult, child and family tickets
• Door sales from the gate phone
• Offline check-in on volunteers’ own phones

How the year goes

1. February: Copy last year’s fair, change the date, and open stall and volunteer applications.
2. March to April: Approve stalls as they come in. Chase only the ones still missing their insurance.
3. Early May: Every job shows who’s on it. Team leaders sort their own teams.
4. May Day: Gate volunteers scan or sell on the door. Numbers add up as you go.

Questions

Our May fair is free to get in. Do we pay anything?

No. We only charge when a ticket sells. Stall applications, volunteers and workshops cost nothing to run.

Can stallholders upload their insurance?

Yes. Ask for the documents you need, like public liability insurance or a food hygiene certificate, and they’re kept with each stall’s application.

Can stallholders pay their pitch fee through Ticket Folk?

Not yet. Approve stalls here, and take pitch fees the way you do now. We’ll say so on this page when that changes.

Some of our volunteers hardly use email. Will this work for them?

The form works on any phone, with no account and no password. If you ask for a deposit, we can send the link by text as well as email.

What does it cost to sell tickets?

Free for founding organisers while we’re starting out, with every feature, and for a year, 12 events or 1,000 tickets after our fee starts. Then 2.5% an order, never more than £2.50.

Also running

• Village fêtes: Stalls, teas, the tombola rota and a dog show. Free to run if you don’t sell tickets.
• Country and agricultural shows: Gate tickets, car parks, trade stands and a small army of stewards, built for a showground with one bar of signal.
• Autumn and harvest festivals: Day tickets, apple-pressing workshops, food stalls and the volunteers who make it all happen.
• Every kind of event we’re built for