Six weeks before the Christmas market
The town council runs a Christmas market, a summer food festival and a monthly craft market. Each needs stallholders. Applications arrive by email with a description of what they sell, sometimes with photos. The events officer or clerk replies with the terms, asks for public liability insurance and, for food traders, food hygiene details, and sends an invoice for the pitch fee.
Some insurance certificates arrive, some expire before the event, some are for the wrong trading name. Payments come by transfer with vague references. The pitch plan is a drawing with names pencilled in, and changes when a trader drops out or needs to be near power. A week before the market, the officer is still chasing documents, answering 'where is my pitch?' emails, and making a list for the stewards.
Why stallholder admin balloons
Each trader is a small file of documents and decisions: approved or not, category, documents in date, paid, pitch, power, gazebo size. Email and a spreadsheet can hold that for a handful of traders. For a busy market it becomes the whole job.
| Item per trader | Usually tracked in | Common problem |
|---|---|---|
| Application and what they sell | Hard to compare for a balanced mix | |
| Public liability insurance | Attachments | Expires before the event |
| Food hygiene details | Attachments or not at all | Missing for food traders |
| Pitch fee | Bank statement | Unmatched payments |
| Pitch and power | Pencil on a plan | Changes not reflected everywhere |
What the chaos costs
The events officer's time goes on chasing rather than on making the event good. Traders who apply first may not get a place because their email was buried. Traders with documents out of date sometimes trade anyway because nobody checked in time. On the day, stewards work from an out-of-date list, and a trader turns up to a pitch that has been given to someone else.
What documents your events require, and your terms, are matters for your council and its advisers. The system checks that what you ask for has arrived and is in date.
A stallholder system for council events
- An online application per event: trading name, contact, what they sell with photos, category, gazebo size and power needs.
- Required documents are uploaded with their expiry dates, and the application will not submit without the ones your event requires for that category.
- The events officer reviews applications on one screen, filtered by category to keep a good mix, and approves, waitlists or declines.
- Approved traders get the terms and a payment link through a provider such as Stripe. Their place is confirmed when payment is received.
- Documents that will expire before the event date are flagged, and the trader is asked for a renewal automatically.
- Pitches are allocated on a digital plan, with power points marked. Moving a trader updates their confirmation and the stewards' list.
- A week before the event, traders get their pitch number, arrival time and setup instructions. Stewards get a list and plan on their phones.
- Traders who return to regular markets can reuse their details and documents, updating only what has changed.
A market season with it running
Applications come in complete. The events officer approves a balanced mix and traders pay online. Expiring documents are chased automatically. The pitch plan is up to date, and traders know where to go. On the day, the stewards' list matches the plan. After the event, the officer can see who traded, who paid and who dropped out, which helps plan the next one.
The edge cases are handled in the same place. A trader who drops out a few days before the event is marked withdrawn, any refund your terms allow is recorded, and the pitch is offered to the first trader on the waitlist in the same category. A trader who needs to share a pitch with a friend's stall is linked to it, so both appear on the stewards' list. And when the power supply on one side of the square changes, the officer can see at a glance which traders need moving.
Is this your events inbox?
- Stallholder applications arrive by email.
- Insurance certificates are checked by hand, if at all.
- Pitch fees are matched to vague bank references.
- The pitch plan is a drawing with pencilled names.
- Stewards work from a list that is already out of date.