When I set up a cheap pop-up tent at a small local festival for the first time four years ago, having general liability insurance wasn’t even a blip on my radar.
Over the last few years, my amateur art display has grown into a full vendor booth. I set up at comic-cons, Renaissance faires, anime conventions, artisan markets, book fairs, small-to-midsized festivals, gaming cons, and other events.
As my business grew and my booth evolved, I started scaling up to bigger events. But in order to do that, I had to find affordable liability insurance for my small business. In this article, I’ll discuss why insurance is important for artist booths, the risks you take when you don’t have it, and how to find an affordable insurer who meets your needs.
This is not a sponsored post, but this article may contain affiliate links. To learn more about how these links are used on this website, read the affiliate disclosure.
Can Artists Set Up a Booth Without Having Insurance?
The short answer to this is… sometimes. But it’s risky.
Smaller markets and festivals don’t usually require vendors to have insurance, although they’ll likely have a section in their vendor agreement stating that by signing, you’re waiving your right to sue if anything happens. This means that if there’s any kind of accident involving your booth and/or products, you are solely responsible.
In these cases, the question changes from can you set up a booth without insurance to should you, which we’ll explore in the next section.
If your business is growing and you start setting your sights on larger markets, bigger festivals, and well- established conventions, then a lack of liability insurance is probably going to start becoming a more serious roadblock for you. Some events might state that you need insurance but don’t actually require upfront proof, which means that if you lie on your application, you’re obviously taking on a big risk that may or may not come back to bite you later. You’re almost guaranteed to be banned from future events if the coordinator asks for proof of insurance later and you can’t provide it.
For other events, you’ll be required to include a certificate of insurance with your vendor application, so there’s no way to fake it since you can’t even apply without it. Alternatively, some events might accept you and take your payment, but then if you fail to provide a certificate of insurance before the event, you’ll lose your spot and won’t be refunded.
Needless to say, if you don’t have insurance, make sure you pay close attention to the vendor guidelines when considering a new event.
Why Should Artists Consider Having Business Liability Insurance?
I’ll freely admit that I am not a fan of insurance in general. I resisted getting liability insurance for a long time.
As an author and artist, I didn’t think I needed extra protection with the types of products that I sold. After all, it wasn’t like I had consumable, breakable, or dangerous wares.
But, eventually, not having insurance was hindering my ability to scale my business. I couldn’t apply for comic-cons, big festivals, and high-end artisan markets. I either had to bite the bullet and find reasonable insurance coverage or stick with small events that often weren’t worth the time and work to set up my booth and man it all day.
I started to understand that insurance did more than simply protect me from a lawsuit for a faulty product or an unforeseen accident. General liability insurance protects creators from advertising harm, property damage, court/legal fees, medical payments, bodily injury, libel, and slander.
Depending on the coverage you want (and can afford), it may also cover your workshop, vehicle, equipment, and products.
Think of it this way — accidents can happen even when you do everything right. Too many variables are outside of your control. What if a patron trips on uneven ground inside your tent? That space was provided to you by the venue, but you’d still be responsible. What if part of another vendor’s display blows into your booth and strikes someone, causing an injury? It doesn’t matter that you don’t own the item; the incident happened inside your booth, so you are responsible. What if your tent collapses on top of someone? What if a patron spills a drink in front of your booth and somebody else slips and falls? The hypothetical scenarios are endless.
I realized that general liability insurance for my small business was more than just a necessary evil I had to have in order to open doors for larger events. It actually did provide me with protection that I was sorely lacking. As we all know, it’s only a matter of time before your luck runs out.
So… can you get away without having insurance as an artist? Sure. For a while. But eventually, if you’re serious about growing your business, you’ll need to reckon with adding insurance into your other business expenses.
How to Find Affordable Insurance for Artists, Artisans, & Authors
Once I decided that I’d finally leveled up my small business enough to warrant getting insurance, the hunt was on.
I was (and still am) operating on a shoestring budget. So, I was beyond frustrated when I contacted my local insurance broker for quotes and received high estimates that were way outside of my limited budget. We’re talking anywhere between $500 to $2,000 paid annually with no option to break the total down into more feasible monthly payments.
These quotes were covering everything, including my house since that’s where I worked and stored products/equipment. But I just wanted the bare minimum to qualify for the events that required vendors to have insurance.
So, I spoke with other artists and vendors in my network to find out what they recommended. I tried two different insurance companies specifically designed for artisans and small businesses: ACT (which stands for “Artists, Crafters, & Tradesmen”) and NEXT. Both of these providers were recommended to me by local entrepreneurs who used them for their businesses.
About a year ago, I compared my experiences with ACT and NEXT in another article if you’d like to read more. Ultimately, my recommendation between the two is NEXT. There was nothing wrong with ACT for artists, but as an author, I didn’t get the coverage I needed compared to NEXT because my books didn’t count as handmade products.
Both of these insurance providers offered reasonable monthly payments of around $25-$30… MUCH more reasonable than shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars upfront on an annual plan. I’ve been with NEXT for over a year now, and I don’t have any negative experiences to report. They make it incredibly easy to quickly generate customized certificates of insurance that list additional insured businesses, which is sometimes a requirement from event coordinators and venues.
When in doubt, talk to the vendors around you and get personal recommendations.
Conclusion
I’m still not a fan of insurance, whether it’s for my healthcare, car, or business. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary part of modern life, and if you’re a small business owner setting up a booth at events, it’s an important business expense to factor into your budget.
Eventually, you’re going to need it, not just for protection, but also to expand your business and tap into larger venues.
If you’d like to connect and stay up to date with my books, blog, art, and more, sign up for my free monthly newsletter!
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
If you would like to support my work, check out the Support The Creator page for more information. Thank you for finding my website! 🖤