NW Tune-up is a mountain biking, craft brewing and music festival, and the vision is super-ambitious. The team that started it last year wants to turn it into a premier, world-class mountain biking festival, with bikers coming from all over the country to attend. They received a three-year City of Bellingham grant to get started. Last year they had about 5000 attendees, this year's goal is 10,000-20,000, and the long term goal is even bigger. Sponsored athletes participated in races up at Galbraith, and they brought in bands from all over the country, and craft brewers from all over the PNW.
The four of us were vendors at the art market last year, and it was at the end of the event that the organizers asked us if we want to host this year's art market, out of which Bellingham Makers Market was born. As was to be expected with a very ambitious first-year event, last year had a glitch or two. But the organizers have been wonderfully responsive to our suggestions for this year, and we are fully in charge of the running of the art market, so we intend to pull off something great!
One of the best changes from last year is that the art market will be outside the paid Tune-up festival area, so the general public can attend for free! The art tents will be lined up along Laurel Street, where people will also be able to access the Trackside Container Village without paying to enter the festival area. We have not yet been given a final number of booths we can have. We asked for 100+, and we were promised 50 for sure. The Tune-up team is still working with the City and the Port on the layout of the festival, which will look very different from last year. They know we want as many vendors as they'll let us have! Fingers crossed for more than 50!
Our email list of interested vendors continues to grow, so the jurying process will be competitive, especially if we only get to have 50 booths.
Important Dates:
- Applications will be open from April 10-30.
- Notification of application status – either accepted, waitlist, or declined: 5/15/2023
- Vending fees and CORRECT insurance documents will be due on 5/22/2023, no exceptions. Because we expect to have a large waitlist, we suggest you submit your insurance documents well in advance of the deadline so that we can contact you if there are any issues.
- Vending fees become non-refundable on 6/29/2023, no exceptions.
- Market dates are July 14-16
- Market hours are TBD, but you can expect to be there full days on Saturday and Sunday, and maybe a somewhat shorter day on Friday.
- Load-in time: TBD
- Load-out time: TBD (Vendors are not permitted to start breaking down before the market closes on Sunday evening. Any vendors breaking down early will not be accepted in future markets we host.)
Other Important Details:
- Application fee: $25
- Vending fee: $250 for a 10 x10 foot space
- Your business must be registered in WA and you must have a UBI number and be able to collect your own sales tax.
- This market is open to handmade makers, artists and artisans. Obviously in the process of handmaking our items, all of us use some bought supplies and components. But we want to showcase vendors who are pouring their creative energies into what they sell. On the application we ask if there are components of your products that aren’t handmade, and reserve the right to ask you not to sell items that we deem inappropriate for this market.
- We believe that having our vendors promote the market is key to bringing the shoppers! Participating vendors are required to promote the market on their social media at least three out of four designated times. We will email you four different times with a graphic and suggested text for you to post that day or the next day. The emails will go out to you on 6/23, 6/30, 7/7 and 7/14 . (We will do our part too! We will advertise on local online events calendars, reach out to news sources, put up poster and flyers, and contact our growing list of shoppers who gave us their emails to learn about upcoming markets. And NW Tune-Up's team is including the makers market in all their advertising!)
- You must be reachable via email. All notifications and reminders will be sent via email from BMM@bellinghammakersmarket.com. When you fill out the application form, please enter an email address that you check regularly. If you miss a deadline because an email went to your spam, junk or gmail's 'promotions' folder, we will assume that you are no longer interested in participating, and will offer your place to a vendor on the waitlist.
- The booth photo is a required part of your application. We will not consider your application without a booth photo. We want to see your products beautifully displayed in your canopy, with all your signage. If you haven't created a booth photo before, there are lots of tips online. We will be using this photo to help us understand the quantity and variety of products you sell, and to visualize how it will look in a row of booths. Impress us!
- There will be extra insurance endorsements required by the City and Port. Last year this cost some of us $70-$90 extra, depending on our insurance companies. These included waivers of subrogation, primary and non-contributory, and specific language (not boilerplate) from the City about indemnification. We are now set up as affiliates with Veracity Insurance, the parent company of ACT, FLIP, HSCG, and more, so we can walk you through the process, but we just wanted to warn you that it will be a bit more complicated than just adding additional insureds. We will be offering a discount code if you purchase insurance through our affiliate link.
- In the application, we will be asking why your items are a great fit for the folks coming to a bikes, beers and bands festival. It's definitely family-friendly, with lots of activities for little kids, (plenty of kids start "mountain biking" on strider bikes when they can't even ride a petal bike yet!) but the festival generally has a certain overall vibe of a Pacific Northwest crowd. Why will those people love your items?
- This is a three-day event. No one will be permitted to break down early, so if you sell out, you still need to be present at your booth, interacting with the shoppers, for the rest of the event. (As always, starting to tear down early will cause you to not be accepted for our BMM's markets.) The daily open hours will be late morning or noon until 8pm or maybe later, TBD.
- Because this event involves the City and Port, certain things will be very strict. For example, last year the fire marshals checked tent weights, and made some exhibitors change theirs on the first morning. No water weights are allowed for some mysterious reason, and you must have the required amount of weight. It can get very windy down by the water, so once we tell accepted vendors what the required amount of weight will be, we suggest you weigh your weights so you don't have an unpleasant surprise if the fire marshal weighs them.
- You must reside in Whatcom, Skagit or Island Counties to be a vendor. The organizers of NW Tune-up want to showcase the talent of our corner of the state.
- Canopies are required.
Because we are hosting this in conjunction with NW Tune-up, we don't get to make all the decisions, and pretty much anything we said here is subject to change. But hopefully this gives you enough information to consider whether you are going to apply. We don't want to scare anyone off from applying, but we also want to be upfront about the requirements.
We're so excited to put together an amazing art market! We feel so honored that Tune-up asked us and that they're entrusting us with the incredible opportunity!