Save the Date for Midwest Craft Con 2023!

Midwest Craft Con is back and we have so many exciting announcements to share!

Who’s speaking at the CON?
Our keynote for 2023 will be: Toni Lipsey of TL Yarn Crafts.

Toni Lipsey, the designer and instructor behind TL Yarn Crafts, strives to inspire others’ creativity through online tutorials and modern, approachable crochet patterns. Toni learned to crochet from her mother as a teenager and has been exploring the possibilities of yarn ever since. Her current design obsessions are oversized shawls and modern home decor. When she’s not crocheting, you can find Toni cuddled with her 2 kittens and husband in her Ohio home, binge-watching the latest true-crime thriller on Netflix. Follow her daily crochet journey on Instagram and pick up her book, The Tunisian Crochet Handbook, and patterns on tlyarncrafts.com. Stay tuned for our full length keynote interview.

When is Midwest Craft Con returning?
Never Craft Alone at Midwest Craft Con which will be held March 31 – April 2, 2023 in Columbus, Ohio!

In addition to the 3 day conference, we are adding Craftin’ Outlaws, our annual marketplace on Sunday, April 2 to close the event.

All experiences will be hosted at the Columbus Museum of Art. Attendees will gain access to the Museum and discounted room rate but it’s not required to stay at our contracted hotel.

Ticket Breakdown:

$299.00 – Member tickets open 9/15/2022
$349.00 – Early Bird tickets open 10/1/2022
$450.00 – General admission tickets opens 11/01/2022
$175.00 – $200.00 Day passes open 1/15/2023

If you haven’t been to our conference, prepare yourself for an endless weekend filled with pom poms and googly eyes, while you build your creative business. Get ready for our keynote(s) to fill you with inspiration, meet your creative heroes you admire online, and prepare to see colleagues you only see across the aisle at craft fairs. Make new friends who help provide the extra drive you need to keep your business growing, long after the conference has ended.

Save the Date for Midwest Craft Con 2020!

March 28, 2019January 10, 2020 Megan GreenLeave a comment

Midwest Craft Con is back and we have so many exciting announcements to share! Grab your ticket today.

Who’s speaking at the CON?
Our keynotes for 2020 will be:.

Twinkie Chan is a crochet designer, author, blogger, YouTuber, and Creativebug instructor known for her colorful, food-themed accessories like cupcake scarves, hamburger mitts, and slushee cup purses
Sara Trail is an author, sewing teacher and pattern and fabric designer. A graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, she founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) to be a platform where youth create art that engages and educates communities.

When is Midwest Craft Con returning?
Crafting your own adventure at Midwest Craft Con will start on February 28th – March 1st, 2020 in Columbus, Ohio! If you haven’t been to our conference, prepare yourself for a an endless weekend filled with pom poms and googly eyes, while you build your creative business. Get ready for our keynotes to fill you with inspiration, meet your creative heroes you admire online, and prepare to see colleagues you only see across the aisle at festivals. Make new friends who help provide the extra drive you need to keep your business growing, long after the conference has ended.

Our theme for 2020 is Craft Your Own Adventure. We will return to the concrete cornfields (Google it!) of Dublin, Ohio. Our craft headquarters will be the Embassy Suites outside of Columbus.

Stay tuned for new team members, speaker & workshop sign ups, early bird release dates, scholarship forms, interviews with our keynotes and so much more!

RSVP Online or sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date on all the announcements!

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See you in Columbus!

February 9, 2017 Megan GreenLeave a comment

This is just a quick message as we get ready for the con — by the time you read this, we will already be in Columbus, getting ready for conners to arrive Friday!

If you weren’t able to get your ticket booked ahead of time, you can still buy a day pass on site. A day pass is $75 for Friday or Sunday and $100 for Saturday. You can see the full conference schedule right here! There’s good stuff going on every single day. We posted details on the evening craftivities, which will include karaoke, crafting competitions and a graduate program in googlyeyeology.

You’ll be able to meet many crafty businesses in our trade show — learn more about the trade show here! To help you get ready, we also posted advice on what to pack. It might be cold outside, but the con is gonna be hot.

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Look who’s speaking at Midwest Craft Con 2017!

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 Megan Green1 Comment

You already know about our featured speakers for 2017: Yao Cheng, Chris Glass, and Jen Hewett. (Read more about them here!) And we now have more great speakers lined up who will be coming to Columbus from across the Midwest and across the country! See the full lineup and read more about the speakers here:

Olivera Bratich: Make Love to Your Customers
Caroline Creaghead: Taxes Don’t Have To Suck
Stephanie Dyke: Project Management Strategies; Goal Setting that Sticks
Esther Myong Hall: Applying for Grants as an Artist
Mei Pak: Instagram Hashtag Research; Email Marketing for New And Repeat Sales; Creating Profitable Membership and Subscription Products
Allison Rosen: Quickbooks for Crafters; Price Point Checkup
Kiffanie Stahle: Defeating Copycats
Thea Starr: How to Say No
Tamia Stinson: Think Like an Art Director
Tara Swiger: Creating a Customer Path 2.0; Developing Business Confidence
Annal Vyas: lawyerly stuff TBD!
Lesley Ware: Getting a Book Deal
The Wonder Jam: Getting Rid of Impostor Syndrome

You can get your ticket to Midwest Craft Con right here!

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Midwest Craft Con is now a 501(c)3!

August 3, 2016 britcharek1 Comment

It’s been almost a year and a half since Grace, Megan and I started exchanging emails to plan the inaugural Midwest Craft Con. Back then, none of us knew if any of the crazy ideas we had would come to fruition but we knew one thing: We all care about our respective crafty communities and want to help them learn, connect them to each other and party with them!

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So we schemed and we hustled and after a lot of Google Hangouts, a few road trips and the most notifications you’ve ever seen in a single group text, we pulled it off. Along the way, we asked our ticket-holders what they wanted to learn at the Con via a secret Facebook group to influence our programming. We even crowdsourced a Spotify playlist to play between breakout times, which turned out AMAZING, and I still listen to it when I’m trying to get stuff done around my house. We sent out surveys and are using that feedback to make Midwest Craft Con even better next year.

Basically, Midwest Craft Con is all about serving our crafty community. We want our ticket-holders to own it and make their experience as meaningful to them as possible. Which is why we are excited to announce that as of July 20, 2016, Midwest Craft Con is no longer the sole property of Megan, Grace and Brit (and of course Olivera before us!) — it now belongs to the creative community!

Up until this point, Midwest Craft Con operated under a fiscal sponsorship agreement with Crafty Mart, a non-profit organization that I direct that hosts handmade markets in Akron. Now, Midwest Craft Con now has its own 501(c)3 federal tax-exempt status, which will help us organizers find additional revenue streams and do more to serve creatives while keeping costs down.

Here is our formal mission statement:

The Midwest Craft Con’s purpose is to provide creative, engaging, and educational opportunities for artists and entrepreneurs to help their businesses thrive. The Midwest Craft Con has the specific purpose of conducting a conference which (a) showcases regional commitment to the arts; (b) fosters discussion and education about the arts; (c) educates creative entrepreneurs on best practices to foster civic engagement; and (d) provides entrepreneurs the opportunity to collaborate with others to advance the state of the arts regionally.

(The lawyers require us to sound overly formal, but y’all know we really just want to kick it with our crafty best buds!)

And we’ve also landed our first grant! The Ohio Arts Council has awarded Midwest Craft Con an ArtSTART grant. We’re excited to start this relationship with the Ohio Arts Council since that’s where we organizers are based, but that doesn’t mean that the Con won’t eventually travel to other places in the Midwest. (Remember that whole listening to feedback thing?)

Obtaining 501(c)3 status also means that any sponsorship dollars invested in Midwest Craft Con are considered tax-deductible. If you’re interested in sponsoring the 2017 Con, please contact us!

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Craft Con Trade Show

January 8, 2016February 3, 2016 Megan Green1 Comment

While dreaming up Midwest Craft Con, one aspect that we felt the conference needed was a place to showcase independent shops and specialty boutiques in our handmade world. So we’ve brought them to us in the form of a Trade Show!

On Friday and Saturday evenings, you can shop and mingle with handmade stores and our sponsors at the conference. Did we mention the trade show coincides with happy hour? 🙂 We’ll also have a book signing area where you can meet many of our published speakers while picking up inspirational reads.

At the Trade Show you’ll find these businesses:

Igloo Letterpress: Explore and shop letterpress goods and stationary supplies.
The Hoop and Needle: Cross-stitch and embroidery kits for complete beginners as well as her own kits (Purple Hippo Stitches) and items from her favorite makers from around the country.
Alison Rose: Purchase screen-printed shirts and accessories from everyone’s favorite crafty Columbus couple. (Also the designers of our logo!)
Wholly Craft: Shop from Columbus’ oldest and best handmade boutique, which will be offering a wide range of Midwest inspired goods.
Frekol: This startup serves local businesses who want to connect to sellers.
Yarn It and Haberdashery: They’ll have unique yarns that can be used knitting, crochet and crafts, such as Loopy Mango, Noro, and Ewe Ewe.
The Smithery: This shop will show off a selection of jewelry representing many of its artists in the store.
Smart Studio Akron is providing a coloring wall experience.

Many trade show exhibitors will offer up DIY demos so be sure to say hello and thank them for the patronage of Midwest Craft Con.

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

December 16, 2015December 30, 2015 Megan GreenLeave a comment

If you were thinking about buying a ticket to Midwest Craft Con but haven’t yet, there is no time like the present to get yourself a present! It’s a great idea to buy that ticket today, and here’s why:

It’s crunch time for last-minute tax writeoffs for 2015! You have until Dec. 31 to make business purchases to write off in your 2015 taxes.

It makes a great gift for yourself or a crafty friend. We know you’ve been nice this year, and it’s a great way to treat yo self after a long holiday craft show season. Or if you’re already going, show a friend how much you care by inviting them along!

The community is already buzzing. We’ve got more than 90 attendees and speakers sharing their knowledge and getting to know each other in our private Facebook group.

Your support helps ensure that Midwest Craft Con will happen again in 2017. We are confident that our conference will be an amazing experience, but it’s difficult to plan for the future until it actually happens.

So don’t delay! Get a ticket for yourself and/or a friend today and make 2016 an amazing year for your craft business.

If you want to be a part of Midwest Craft Con but can’t afford it right now, we’ll be posting information on a scholarship we’ll award to one lucky craft businessperson in January. Watch for details on that in 2016!