How a Fair Works

We run hundreds of fairs ranging from preschool to high school events. A lot of planning goes into a fair. To make it easier for you, we broke out the steps as follows:

Pre Fair Planning

What We Do
Once we agree on a date and sign the contract, we come to your school to visit the place the fair will be held (the gym or the library, for example).We help you make a floor plan for the fair, laying out the best way the books should be dlsplayed in their categories.

• Your Profile Sheet: We send you a profile sheet to fill out so we have all the information we need to pack for your fair, e.g. school specific needs and wishes, drop off times etc. We discuss whether you will hold a family event with extended shopping hours and whether one of our authors would be a good fit for you. Learn more about our authors.
• Book selection: We select a wide variety of great books for all ages for your scohol, including new releases, Newbery, Caldecott, and Nutmeg award winners. We bring old favorites and classics, fiction and nonfiction, series, history, biography, science, math, gift, and holiday choices. We also bring great coffee-table books, cookbooks, and best sellers for adults. Let us include your schools reading list and recommendations. These books get packed by category in labeled and numbered boxes to make set up easy for you.
• Packing up for the Fair: Many of the books are boxed for transit to your school. Several categories get packed into floor racks that will arrive at your school shrink wrapped in plastic. These are great for display - the books look great with no work from you!  

What You Do

Who You Need on Your Team

• Decorations: This team coordinates the color scheme and decorations so Booktopia will order table covers and table skirts to match. This team transforms your space into a magical book fair.
• Publicity: In this time of high tech, this team uses email, newsletters, flyers and more to publicize your fair. We can help brainstorm the best way to advertise your fair.
• Set up and take down crew: Depending on the size of your school, we can suggest how many volunteers you will need for this job.
• Treasurer: This person counts the money and checks each night and deposits the proceeds. The treasurer will also do the final reconciliation with Booktopia after the fair.

Promotional Event Ideas

• Set up Author Visits: This is a real attention grabber and great for the kids. We can discuss which author may be appropriate to come to your school. 
• Recommendations from Teachers: Volunteers from each grade level can ask their teachers for recommendations.
• Reach your Families: You can use your regular communication system such as the school website, emails, flyers and posters.
• Get the Students Involved: Create excitement at your school by getting students involved, for example by holding a read-a-thon leading up to the book fair, or by holding a used book drive (make room for new books!).
• Family Night Preparation: Many schools hold a Family Night of evening shopping, along with a special event. We work with your school’s book fair committee to plan this event, which could include a visit by a children’s author or illustrator. These events are great fun for the whole family and offer a time when families may find it more convenient to come to the fair together.

The Day Before the Fair

What We Do

• The Books Come To You: Our Booktopia delivery crew arrives at your school at the time you specified in your book fair profile and takes the book boxes and the shrink wrapped book racks into your school to the area where you book fair will be held. If you have already set up your table, the crew will put the boxes right where they belong- easy!
• Dressing Up the Room: We know many of you have great themes for the fairs. To augment that, we provide table tops and skirts for you to dress up your tables, category signs and sign holders, floor and table top display racks and book stands. 
• Check Out Set Up: For the check out area we bring laptops, scanners and receipt printers. This ensures that every customer receives a printed receipt and we can print a sales report after your fair is over for future planning.
• Training and Monitoring: We train your volunteers, monitor stock and re-order as necessary. We are with you every step of the way, from initial meeting to the last transaction, you can always count on us to help you when you need us!

What You Do 

• Set up: Your volunteers unpack the books from the labeled boxes. 
• Decorate: You decorate the room to make it more festive with the theme you have planned. 
• Training and Monitoring: Your personal book fair liaison from Booktopia Fairs will help train you on the check out equipment and will answer any questions that you may have, making sure the fair is all set up properly and you are comfortable before your big event.

The Fair

• The Opening Event: Your school may choose to open the fair with an evening FAMILY NIGHT shopping event. This is a great idea to drum up excitement. It also gives you enough time to set up the fair the day of the event, and gives you an extra few hours of sales compared to starting the fair the following morning.
• Author's Events: Did you choose to book an author? This would be the time to invite him/her to your school! Click here to learn more...
• Promotion Continues: Your publicity team should not stop promoting your fair once it has started, but rather remind your students and parents of the ongoing fair with emails and flyers. The more reminders, the better!
• Replenishing the Fair: You will receive a daily restock of books that are selling particularly well at your school. You can decide on the time that suits you best for your daily restocking, and we will make sure to deliver more books to you each day. We have forms for you to email or fax to us indicating which books you are running low on.

Post Fair Suggestions

• Packing Up the Books: When the book fair ends your volunteers pack the unsold books back into boxes. No need to empty the racks that came filled, our delivery crew will wrap them up and take them loaded. The Booktopia Pick Up Crew will come at your chosen pick up time to take away all the boxes and racks.
• Settling Expenses: Your treasurer should contact with Booktopia to wrap up the financials, and finalize the invoice. 
• Shipping Post-Fair Books: If you took orders for specific books during the last day of your fair, we will make arrangement to either drop off or ship those books to your school as soon as possible, free of charge.
• Consider Extended Online Shopping: After your fair, your publicity team should send a reminder out about the Booktopia Fairs website and the shopping possibilities it provides. This is a great opportunity to reach customers who might not have made it to the fair or would have liked to have had more time to shop. We have email suggestions, just ask us!
• Learn From Your Sales: Thanks to our unique check out equipment, we are able to provide you with a detailed sales report by category after the end of your fair. This helps planning for future fairs as we can assess together what categories sold well or not so well in your school.
• Plan For the Next Fair: It is always a good idea to lock in your next fair dates immediately after the fair wraps up. We schedule book fairs up to a year in advance, and the earlier you book, the more choices you have for your preferred dates.
• Online Fairs: Parents and students shop online during a designated online fair time and you receive a even bigger percentage of all sales than everyday. We help you advertise your fair, send you promotional materials, raffle prizes and more. Best of all, we deliver the books to your school for FREE!! Click here to learn more.