Check out information on holiday bazaars and the like. If it’s a smaller one (i.e. church or community center) you don’t have to have a ton of product on hand to make it worth your while. There’s a guide we have up here called Midwest Art Fairs and it has everything from the big shows to the little annual events. I’m certain there would be a Southern edition for you. I found ours at Barnes & Noble so it’s very widely available.
I also found a group called Minnesota Handmade - it’s a collective of local handcraft people who give each other encouragement, organize meetups and hold crafter entrepreneur seminars. Most of them are Etsy shop owners too so there is a lot of support for keeping your shop current, sharing of best practices and referrals to interested buyers. You might see if you can’t find something like that in your area, or heck, start one of your own.
I only do 2 shows a year. We have a neighborhood of artists coops in St. Paul and we all open our studios twice a year for sales to the public. Hundreds of participating artists of all kinds and the fee to be included in the guide is only $35.00. It’s a big party for all of us and we get to make money at the same time! I also have an Etsy shop that’s been woefully neglected so I don’t want to talk about it.
