Organising a craft market in Bologna? Event page, tickets and exhibitor call in one place

Organising a craft market in Bologna means holding two different jobs together. The first is physical and bureaucratic: finding the venue, applying for permits, fixing the date and opening hours, choosing exhibitors. The second is digital: a page that says where and when, a way to get the call to the right Makers, a system to know how many people to expect. The first job stays yours. The second is covered by Handsome, free of charge, with a panel built for people who organise handmade markets: event page, free tickets with QR codes, exhibitor open call and linked live workshops, all in one place.

What must be ready before you open a call

Before publishing anything, an organiser needs four things in hand. Without them the call goes out and stalls at the second question from an exhibitor.

• A fixed date and hours. Not "a weekend in October": the day, opening time, closing time, the set-up and pack-down windows.
• The venue, with its title. Public ground, private courtyard, shop, an association's premises: each case needs a different permit or agreement, and the permit also decides how many stalls fit.
• Selection criteria. Handmade only or resale too? Which categories? How many stalls per category? What does the stall fee include, and what not?
• A communication plan. Who publishes what, when, with which image. The poster is needed before the call, because it is the first thing exhibitors share.

Permits and public ground: the source is the City of Bologna

If the market sits on a square, under a portico or in a park, you need a public ground occupation permit from the City of Bologna. The application, timing, documents to attach and the fee depend on the area, the duration and the type of event, and they change over time: that is why there are no figures here. The reference pages are the City's on occupying public ground in areas of particular civic interest and on stalls lasting no more than 24 hours; the rest of the forms live in the business and commerce section.

What to clarify with the office before fixing the date:

• Whether the event counts as commercial, cultural or mixed: the classification changes both procedure and fee.
• What requirements selling exhibitors must meet: VAT-registered sellers, hobbyists and charity sales are not treated the same way.
• What is needed for food and drink: catering has its own authorisation path, separate from a craft stall.
• Whether there is music or entertainment: copyright fees and, depending on the expected crowd, safety measures to agree on.
• In a private space (courtyard, shop, association premises): a written agreement with whoever runs it, capacity, exits and public liability insurance.

The exhibitor call: clear criteria, fewer emails to handle

A well-written call cuts down direct messages and off-target applications considerably. The open call on Handsome is split into five fields, and they are a good template even if you publish it elsewhere.

1. Introduction: what the market is, where, when, for whom. Two paragraphs, not a page.
2. Spaces: stall size, whether table and chairs are provided, power, cover in case of rain, car access for unloading.
3. Requirements: handmade only or not, admitted categories, whether a VAT number is needed or hobbyists are welcome, participation fee and what it includes.
4. Selection criteria: how you choose, who chooses, when you reply. If there is a cap per category, write it down.
5. Policy: bad-weather cancellation, fee refund, conduct at the stall, set-up hours.

Set a deadline and stick to it: almost all applications arrive in the last few days, and that is normal. After the deadline reply to everyone, including the noes. In Bologna the exhibitor circle is small and a market's reputation is built this way too.

Handsome covers the digital side, for free

Handsome is the Italian marketplace for craft workshops, based in Bologna, with a section dedicated to handmade markets: public pages are grouped by city, like the markets in Bologna page. Organisers get a dedicated panel, opened from /market/registrati, that works on phone and on PC. It costs nothing: Handsome earns by bringing people to Makers' workshops, and a market full of Makers is the best place to do that.

• Public event page with poster, photos, logo, dates (multi-day too), hours, address, social links and a stable address of the form handsomemakers.com/market/your-market-name.
• Three entry modes: showcase only, free tickets with QR codes, paid tickets on your own system.
• Exhibitor open call with a dedicated page and shareable link; applications land in the panel, not in your inbox.
• Linked live workshops: Makers running a hands-on session during the market attach it to your page.
• Participant list and check-in with the QR scanner from your phone, for events with free tickets.
• Reminders and service communications to participants, sent by Handsome.

Three modes: showcase, free QR ticket, paid tickets

The panel asks how people get in, and that is a separate choice from the price.

• Showcase only. The page tells the story of the event and nothing more: no booking. Fine for a market in a shop or a courtyard where you do not need to count people.
• Free tickets with QR. Entry stays free, but whoever wants one takes a ticket at no cost and receives a reminder with hours and directions. You see how many people have booked and at the door you check them in with the panel's scanner; anyone arriving without a ticket still gets in. It is the right mode for a free-entry market: an attendance estimate before, a real list afterwards.
• Paid tickets. If you sell tickets, you sell them on your own system: the Handsome page stays a showcase and points to your purchase link. Handsome does not collect market ticket money.

The open call reaches Makers in your province

The call is not a PDF attached to an email: it is a page with its own address, which you can share anywhere, and it appears in the dashboard of Makers registered on Handsome in the Markets nearby box, filtered by province. A Maker from Bologna and its province sees it among upcoming events, with the deadline, and applies from there. Applications land in your panel with the Maker's disciplines, contact and link to their work, so you judge by looking at the work rather than piecing together who is who from an email. Selection stays yours.

Live workshops inside the market

This is what sets a market on Handsome apart from a list of stalls. A Maker who runs a hands-on session during the market, say a try-out at the wheel or a short engraving class, publishes it as a workshop on Handsome and links it to your market from their own panel. The workshop appears on your event page, with time, seats and booking, and in your panel you see people expected from workshops: people who have already paid to come that day, at that hour.

Participant data: who sees what

The data of people taking a ticket is collected by Handsome under its own privacy notice. In the panel you see the list with name and entry status, which is what check-in needs. The contact details of those who chose to share them with the organiser are handed to you only after you have accepted the participant data terms and filled in the data controller details, because they appear in the notice shown to visitors. Service communications, such as a cancellation, are sent by Handsome. If you want to message participants, you write it in the panel and it goes out from our address on your behalf, after approval: it is the only paid service, and you see the price there before confirming.

A real example in Bologna: Comunella Market

Comunella Market is a craft and illustration market held in Bologna with its own page on Handsome: poster, dates and hours, address, free QR ticket and an exhibitor call published from the panel. It is the typical case the tool was built for: a free-entry event, run by a collective, that needed a stable page to share and a way to count people without selling tickets.

How to start, in five steps

1. Write to Handsome from /market/collabora if you would rather be contacted first, or create the account directly from /market/registrati.
2. Fill in the listing: name, dates, hours, address, poster and a few photos from past editions if there are any. Incomplete listings do not go online.
3. Choose the entry mode. If in doubt, free tickets with QR: you can always go back to showcase.
4. Publish the exhibitor call with the five fields and the deadline.
5. Share the page and call links on your channels. Handsome does the rest with Makers in the province.

If your market is indoors and you are still looking for the space, read Workshop space in Bologna: how to choose it and what to ask; if the organiser is an association and you want to know which grants exist, start from Grants and funding for artisans in Emilia-Romagna.