There is a saying I have believed in for as long as I can remember: a rising tide lifts all boats.
It is simple, but it has shaped the way I see community, business, and especially the handmade world. I don’t mean that in some vague, feel-good way. I mean it literally: we are all connected, and the success of the people and businesses around us affects the health of the community we all share.
That belief is why I promote other makers. It’s why, as a show producer, I promote other quality craft shows. It’s why I can hear that another event had a fantastic weekend and feel genuinely glad for them, instead of wondering what their good fortune costs me.
I know that isn’t how everyone sees it.
When multiple craft shows operate in the same area, it’s tempting to view the others as rivals. If a nearby show is drawing the same makers, the same customers, even the same weekend, it’s easy to assume their gain is your loss.
I understand the instinct. Makers have limited time, customers have limited budgets, and a year only has so many weekends. But I think that view misses the bigger picture.
If a craft show exists to support handmade makers, the first question should always be: what do those makers need in order to survive?
The answer is never “one good show.”
Makers need a marketplace, not a single weekend
No maker can build a sustainable business around a single successful show.
Consider what goes into making and selling handmade work: materials, equipment, packaging, insurance, a website, marketing, travel, and every other cost of running a small business — on top of the sheer time it takes to actually make the work.
A maker might spend weeks preparing for one event: building inventory, packing the car, driving to the venue, setting up a booth, selling for one or more long days, then tearing it all down again.
A great weekend feels wonderful. But Monday still arrives, and the business still needs running. More work has to get made. Bills have to get paid. Supplies have to get restocked. And that new work has to sell too, or the whole cycle stalls.
One show, however successful, can’t sustain most makers on its own. They need a full calendar of opportunities throughout the year — which is exactly why I find it short-sighted to treat another good show as a threat. If makers can’t earn enough to keep going, some of them won’t.
They’ll make less. They’ll show less. Eventually, some will decide the math no longer works and go find a regular job instead.
When that happens, everyone loses something. The show loses a good maker. Customers lose a chance to buy meaningful work. The handmade community shrinks. And any show that claims to champion handmade takes a quiet hit right along with it.
So if we actually care about makers, we should want more good places for them to sell — not fewer. Not every event suits every maker, and not every show thrives equally. That’s fine. What matters is a network of quality opportunities strong enough that makers have a real shot at building something sustainable.
Good shows create good customers
There’s a second reason I don’t see quality shows as enemies: they build the audience we all depend on.
Someone who has a great experience at a well-run, well-curated show comes back looking for more. They discover makers they love. They learn the difference a genuinely good handmade event can make. They start looking forward to craft shows the way they look forward to any favorite outing.
That benefits every quality show in the region.
I don’t need people to shop only at my event. I want them to fall in love with handmade itself — to follow makers, buy their work, and go looking for the next opportunity to shop local. If another excellent show helps create that kind of customer, why would I resent it?
The more people who understand the value of handmade, the bigger and healthier the whole market becomes.
That’s the tide I mean.
Competition and community aren’t opposites
None of this means shows shouldn’t care about doing well. Of course we should.
Every show should work to attract excellent makers, give customers a great experience, market well, run well, and keep improving. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the best.
What I object to is the idea that one show can only win if another loses.
Those are not the same thing.
Some competition is unavoidable — dates sometimes overlap, makers must choose, customers can’t be in two places or spend money twice. Those are just realities of running an event.
But acknowledging competition doesn’t require treating it as a war. I can want my show to have a phenomenal weekend while genuinely hoping another good show does too. I can point a maker toward a different event without feeling I’ve lost something. I can celebrate someone else’s win without it costing me mine.
That’s not naïveté — it’s a different definition of success.
The handmade community is an ecosystem
I’ve spent countless hours year after year trying to explain this because the distinction matters.
A handmade community isn’t a set of isolated businesses fighting over a fixed pool of customers — it’s an ecosystem. Makers need shows. Shows need makers. Both need customers, and customers need places to discover handmade work in the first place. A good experience at one event makes someone more likely to seek out the next. Everything feeds something else.
That’s why supporting one maker doesn’t mean taking from another. Promoting another show doesn’t diminish mine. And another show’s success doesn’t limit mine.
If anything, it’s the reverse: good makers who succeed stay in the marketplace. Good shows that succeed bring more attention to handmade generally. Customers with good experiences come back for more. And as more people buy handmade, more makers get the chance to build something that lasts.
That’s how a community gets stronger — one reinforcing loop at a time.
We don’t have to support everything to support the whole
This isn’t a new philosophy for me. I’ve been a maker myself, selling my own handmade work for more than 40 years, and I’ve been producing craft shows for more than 26 years. I’ve experienced this community from both sides of the table, and I’ve spent a great deal of that time thinking about the relationship between makers, shows, and the communities they depend upon.
Community doesn’t mean personally backing every person, business, charity, or event that exists. None of us has unlimited time, money, or energy. I might champion one cause because it speaks to me; someone else champions another. That doesn’t mean either of us wants the other’s cause to fail.
The same logic applies here. I don’t expect every maker at every show, or every customer at every event, or universal agreement on every organizer or venue. What I do believe is that we should be capable of wishing good people well — glad to see another maker’s booth sell out, glad to see another show pull a great crowd, willing to promote something we have no stake in simply because its success feeds something bigger than either of us.
That’s what community actually looks like.
We all have a stake in the tide
This matters most at the local level, because the ripple effects reach well past the booths at the show. A maker who succeeds is buying materials, paying for printing and packaging, investing in websites, equipment, insurance, transportation. Their customers are choosing to spend locally instead of sending that money somewhere else. A whole web of businesses and people benefits when one maker manages to stay afloat.
A good local show works the same way — pulling people into that local economy, giving makers access to customers, and giving customers a window into the talent working right in their own backyard. A thriving show isn’t an island; it’s one more thread in the network holding up handmade businesses everywhere.
So yes — I want my show to succeed. I want makers to have great weekends, customers to leave thrilled, and people to come back next year. I want it to grow and keep getting better.
But I want other good shows to succeed too. I want their makers to thrive. I want customers everywhere to develop the habit of seeking out handmade work, and I want people who’ve never set foot at a craft show to discover what they’ve been missing. Most of all, I want enough good opportunities out there, year-round, that makers can keep doing what they love and actually make a living at it.
None of that is in conflict.
If we’re serious about supporting handmade, we have to think past our own event and toward the health of the whole ecosystem — enough good shows, enough good makers, enough engaged customers to keep the whole thing thriving. That doesn’t mean pretending competition doesn’t exist. A maker will sometimes have to choose between two shows. A customer will sometimes only have the budget for one. Organizers will always have to earn their spot. But competing on quality doesn’t require wanting someone else to have less opportunity to succeed.
In 26-plus years of doing this, I’ve watched makers and shows come and go, and I’ve watched the whole marketplace shift in ways no one predicted. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that none of us operates alone. We rise and fall with the health of the community around us.
So I’ll keep promoting good makers. I’ll keep supporting quality shows I have nothing to do with. And I’ll keep celebrating people doing good work for this community, whether or not I had any hand in it.
More opportunities mean more people discover handmade. More discovery means more makers can build something sustainable. More sustainable makers mean a stronger community. And a stronger community means more room for all of us to grow.
That’s what a rising tide means to me. It isn’t about pretending our paths never cross — it’s the understanding that when we do cross paths, someone else doesn’t have to lose for me to win.
We don’t have to attend every show, agree with every organizer, or love every event. But we can wish good people well, support quality wherever it shows up, and stop treating someone else’s success like a threat just because we didn’t produce it ourselves.
After all these years, that’s still exactly how I see it. Someone else’s success doesn’t shrink mine.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
–MJ
About Miranda
I’m Miranda Jordan, an artist, maker, educator, and event producer based in Nova Scotia. I’ve spent more than four decades creating and selling handmade work, teaching, and producing craft shows and classes across three countries. Artistrative is where I share what I’ve learned along the way.
Follow Artistrative on social media for practical advice, inspiration, and resources for makers.
Facebook | Instagram
If you’d like to explore the artwork that inspired this journey, visit mirandajordan.ca or follow my art journey on Facebook | Instagram