Top Nashville Markets (And What to Expect)

When Chris (my husband and co-founder) and I first launched Yucca Society during the Fall of 2022, we had a few products on an Etsy page. This wasn't my ideal scenario. I come from a background of retail sales and desperately wanted to connect with our customers face-to-face. But how? I was relatively new to Nashville and had no idea how to get our product in front of people.

Fast forward a few months, I started looking into markets. I had no idea what I was doing but I filled out an application for Porter Flea (a huge Nashville market) and hoped for the best. You can only imagine how absolutely shocked I was when I received an email that confirmed our acceptance!

Now, only a year later, we have attended over 7 markets all over the Nashville area!

If you're ready to join the market scene, we've compiled this list of markets we've attended so far and key takeaways from each one.

Porter Flea 

This is one of the most popular Nashville-based markets and it's so much fun! Located at the Nashville Fairgrounds in a beautiful indoor space, this market features vendors from Nashville and beyond. Porter Flea happens in the early summer and right before Christmas and each time, they offer a ticketed Friday preview night and a free Saturday event. They provide free pizza for vendors on preview night and free coffee and baked goods on Saturday's market. 

Key Takeaways We've done a regular booth and a corner booth and while our sales didn't shift majorly between the two, I loved the foot traffic of the corner booth. Setup for this market can take a while and vendors tend to go all out-something that majorly intimidated me the first time around. We spent the week before demoing our booth to make sure it would fit and to get setup to an art. When it comes to day-of prep, wear comfy clothes for setup and pack a cute outfit for the day of.

Crafty Bastards 

This market happens three times a year: in the spring and fall on a Saturday and Sunday and in the summer as a one-day night market event. It is an outdoor event, so please take that into consideration when applying.

Key Takeaways Since it's an outdoor market, be sure to prepare accordingly. Bring tent side walls and plenty of tent weights as this market happens rain or shine. Also, you may find your tent in the grass. I recommend a washable or outdoor rug to make the mud (if rain happens before or during) less visible.

Franklin Maker's Market 

This market has taken place at Westhaven in Franklin previously but has been moved to The Factory at Franklin. It is a one day event that takes place in the spring and late fall.

Key Takeaways When this market was held at Westhaven, we noticed that the event attracted more "crafty" vendors. Since we are a curated lifestyle shop, we didn't see the sales we were expecting from this crowd. We also noticed that most of the shoppers were in more of a browsing mood which has not been the case at Porter Flea or Crafty Bastards. We applied to this market again, however, because (1) our goal is to continue to create brand awareness and (2) we hope that changing the location to The Factory at Franklin will bring in a different crowd.

The Southern Flea

This was a brand new event in Nashville that was hosted three weekends in a row at Urban Cowboy in September.

Key Takeaways The market hosts were by far our favorite of any market we've done. They were incredibly helpful, responsive and thorough. We were only able to attend two of the three markets and had different experiences both times. The first time, it was rainy and outdoors and this was surprisingly our best sales day of the two! The host also provided free drink tickets so we definitely treated ourselves to Public House afterwards! The second event had way more attendees and our booth was indoors that round. I don't think people knew they could shop inside the hotel since that wasn't clearly marked so our traffic wasn't as great.

We know from experience how scary it can be to put yourself out there and the risk you take when you pay the vendor fee without any idea if you'll even be profitable. If you have questions about any of these markets, feel free to reach out! We're happy to be a resource. And if you attend any of these markets and we're there too, please come by and introduce yourself. We'd love to meet you!