Station Log: Marietta the Gathering 2026
An Artist Alley/Event Review
Event Name: Marietta the Gathering
Marietta the Gathering is a one-day outdoor event celebrating fantasy and sci-fi fandoms, anime, gaming, and general nerd culture. It feels very much like a mini con, featuring an artist marketplace, gaming tent, cosplay competition, and panel-like events. It takes place in and around Historic Marietta Square in, well, Marietta, Georgia. This year it took place on March 7, and while this was their fourth year of putting on the event, this was my second year coming as a vendor in the marketplace. All right, let's dive into the nitty-gritty of the marketplace end!
Note: the marketplace here is called the Guild Show!
Applications
Apps opened last year on October 31st, but as a returning vendor, I was given early access to apply on October 24th! I submitted my app on the 24th and received my acceptance less than an hour after I submitted. I don't know what kind of wizardry is happening on their end to work so quickly, but I appreciated the early response so I could immediately add the date to my event calendar!
They had an online application and a PDF application, the latter of which could be emailed or physically mailed in. It asked all the standard questions, as well as for photos of your booth layout and products, and required no application fees.
You could choose either the 10 ft x 10 ft space for $100 or the 10 ft x 20 ft space for $200, with access to electricity for an extra $50. To me, these are all super reasonable costs considering the scale of the event and earning potential! Same as last year, I went with just the 10 ft x 10 ft space. I considered dropping the extra $50 for electricity, but decided against it since I’ve had pretty good luck with keeping everything charged with battery packs.
The application deadline this go-around was February 6th, but like last year, it seemed that the show filled up long before then, so submit early if you’re applying in the future! They also maintain a waitlist that is pulled from in order of submission.
Pre-Event Meet-and-Greet
T minus one week to the event: Marietta the Gathering (I’ll abbreviate with MtG going forward) had a meet-and-greet for the vendors, panelists, and various participants the weekend before. Like the previous year, I was out of town that weekend, so I missed out on that, but from the email sent out about it, it sounded like it would be a pretty good time. Supposedly, there was a giveaway with items from sponsors and local businesses as well as the reveal of this year’s T-shirt designed by fellow vendors as a part of the annual T-shirt design contest. Fingers crossed I’ll get to attend next year!
Load-In
Today’s the day! I woke up bright and early at 4:30 a.m. to do some last-minute packing, and after a little bit of a late start, I arrived on scene at 6:20 a.m.. My body woke up and unfortunately decided it was a great day to be in pain, but after chugging ibuprofen and embracing the can-do spirit of Load-In, I was able to power through. Upon arrival, there were some helpful volunteers to direct me to my table area, which was on the north side of the park. It was still fairly early in the morning, so we were able to fully offload the vehicle and get the tent and table setup before parking the car in the free city hall parking deck. Load-in was from 5:30 a.m.–9:30 a.m., but most vendors seemed to get there between 7–8 a.m.-ish, so I recommend getting there early to beat the rush.
All booths are located in the street and mine happened to be over a water/sewer grate. It was really considerate on the organizers’ part that they had provided grate covers to keep stuff from falling in. They had the booth spaces labeled and marked off (so there wasn’t any awkward tent shuffling to make everyone fit), which I noted was a very welcome improvement over last year.
Despite having more products, I was much quicker at setting up this year. With my helper, we were able to fly through setting up fixtures and filling in product (I did primarily self-serve) and I only hit my regular speedbumps of sorting through a bag of unlabeled price signs (one day I will figure it out, lol).
At around 9 a.m., I finished up the bulk of my setup and zipped around to drop off the stamp cards and stickers to the other artists in the stamp rally I was hosting (see Stamp Rally! section below for more details). I also proceeded to get distracted and briefly chatted to some other artist friends who were also selling that day, before running back to finish my setup. That wraps the load-in stage, so let’s dive into the meat and potatoes of the event!
(Here's my setup! It's a bit overcast, but trust me, it looks much brighter in person. I'm considering investing in a white cover for the visuals, but I need to look into the sun protection factor. Also, I forgot to pack my overhead banner, so the tent cover looks a little blasé compared to the actual booth lol)
My Booth
This year, I focused on upgrading and improving my booth setup. I had good success with the Z-shaped table layout, so I pretty much kept the same setup as last year. I really liked the opportunity to diverge from my usual inline table and invite people into my little store setup (a theme I want to lean into much more heavily next year 👀). In total, I had two 4-ft tables, one 6-ft table, and my cheap Daiso clothing rack, which did surprisingly well at holding up my tote bags (even despite the incoming weather event (foreshadowing)).
I also brought my 4-ft cardboard standee of my booth mascot, Hoshii, and planted him right off to the side of my tent entrance. Since I had a lot more original merch this year, I think he really helped "sell" the concept to attendees, if that makes sense. People who recognized him from the standee would ask if he was my OC when checking out my display, which definitely helped drive sales among those who were in the market for original art.
(On a side note: cardboard standees are just so much fun! Stars help me, but I'm currently fighting my inner demons over whether I'll make another one for my other OCs next year.)
As far as other vendors' setups went, they spanned the gamut, from classic inline booths to U-shaped table layouts and booths with just chairs for interactive activities like face painting and caricatures.
As far as helpers go, I think this event is doable solo, but it'll require a little more finesse, especially if you have a bigger setup, a lot of products, or need to move things to and from your car. In this case, I'd feel more comfortable having a helper to watch my booth while I'm on break, since I have a self-serve display. And it's so nice having an extra set of hands during peak hours!
Profit?
As of this writing, I’m happy to report that Marietta the Gathering has become my highest-earning single-day event so far! I don’t have the specific numbers on hand, but my gross profit came to over $1,200, including the tax Square collected. Tips (collected through my Square terminal) funny enough, turned out to be almost the exact same amount as last year’s, coming up to roughly $33. I didn’t have my cash tip jar out because it broke somewhere along the line after AWA (RIP; I’ve had it since my very first market back in like 2023), so it was just digital tips this time.
Customer payments were split with 90% paying by card and 10% paying in cash. My average sales were also pretty substantial, with purchase totals averaging over $20.
Stamp Rally!
I noticed that the completion rate was a little lower this year compared to 2025 (60% this year versus 80% in 2025). I noticed that many more attendees seemed unfamiliar with stamp rallies this year compared to last year, so perhaps this led to some hesitation about participating.
I collaborated with artists Midecrochetsnclay (@midecrochetsnclay) and Crying Monkey (@crying.monkey) on this rally. Please check these amazing humans out! Overall, I had a really good time collaborating with these amazing artists on this project and the attendees really enjoyed it, so I would definitely plan a rally again.
Notes for artists planning a rally (these are just things to consider; make sure you do your own research as always!)
2026 Stats:
Prizes | 25-50 prizes total
Stamp cards | 50-100 cards total
The theme was Cozy Cafe Snacks, which was fairly neutral and had wide appeal. We each contributed a sticker design to the final prize pack, which attendees earned after spending $5 at each booth. In hindsight, I feel I was a bit overzealous with the amount of prizes that I estimated we needed.
In future years, I think I’d keep rally prizes at 10-15 prizes at most and keep the participating artist count on the smaller end (so, like, four artists in a rally)
Food + The Restroom Situation
MtG is one event where I historically run on two to three hours of sleep, having barely eaten anything before noon, and still have enough in me to keep going until I inevitably get forced to take a break around 2 pm (I know, I know, this is horrible, and I will try my best to fix it next year). I’m generally so preoccupied with setup and then immediately getting to interact with attendees that somehow I subsist on the adrenaline and excitement alone.
So when I finally peeled away from my booth, I visited the Tiny Bubbles Tea Bar for a lil’ break. After a much-needed restroom break, I ordered the same strawberry refresher I got last year with the addition of a double-chocolate-chip cookie (that I proceeded to forget about after two bites, and it turned into a crumbly mess in the bottom of my tote bag T^T)
If you’re not one for boba, around Marietta Square there are several restaurants, cafes, and small food shops to choose from. And if you don’t want to venture far, MtG was providing refreshments at their info booth.
As an aside, while I personally didn’t get the chance to visit them, apparently there were newly added portable bathrooms behind the stage in the park.
The Weather Event (TM)
It wouldn't be an outdoor event in March without some funny business going on with the weather, now, would it? I'm not counting this against the event in my rating, since the weather isn't in the organizers' hands. But I think this is an important reminder for anyone doing an outdoor event: please be prepared for anything!
Last year, I ruefully but lovingly dubbed the weather event Windyetta the Gathering. As the name implies, the wind was coming through in gusts, threatening to take both unsecured paper goods and lightly weighted tents with it. From my memory, some unsecured tents nearly went airborne. Thankfully, I hadn't built my display too tall, and the fact that only one-third of my display got pushed off the table was the worst thing that happened that day (my Square terminal has the chipped screen protector to prove it).
This year, we had Rainyetta the Gathering: an otherwise slightly overcast day that gave way to a sudden, intense rain shower. Remember that water grate I mentioned earlier? Well, because of physics and how grates are designed to be depressed into the ground and blah blah blah, all the rainwater from the parking lot in my section ended up running toward my booth, lol. It probably only lasted 10–15 minutes, but watching all that rainwater rush underneath my table was definitely an experience.
Thankfully, all my bins and bags were either sealed plastic or elevated off the ground, so the worst I had to deal with was some damp edges on my tablecloth and a slightly dampened standee.
On the bright side (lol), many attendees took shelter with the artists under the covered spaces in our tents, so we had a bit of soggy camaraderie going on as we waited for the storm to pass. I personally don't think the sudden shower had too big an impact on sales, but let's all hope that next year brings clear skies and sunshine!
Attendance
Last but not least! While I haven't been able to find concrete numbers for average attendance, I'd have to guess that at least somewhere between 1,000-5,000 people showed up (just don't put too much weight on this number because I'm not an expert in guestimating volumes of people). This event is free and open to the public, so there's always a mix of people who intentionally came for the event and those who just happened upon it.
Despite the reputation some free-entry events have for seemingly treating vendors as an afterthought, MtG has been nothing of the sort. It has successfully created an environment where the Guild Show artists and creators are an appreciated core part of the event.
Final Thoughts + Would I Attend Again?
Did I Earn Back Table?: Yes! In fact, I made back table in the first hour :)
Where Expenses Covered?: Yes! I only live about 30-minutes away, so getting here isn't expensive (in fact, I commute further for work T^T). I also covered food, the cost of merch sold, and new paper bags I bought.
If you’re local and can do this event without lodging or hotel costs (I generally don’t recommend doing that for one-day events unless the earning potential to your expenses is insanely high), I absolutely recommend Marietta the Gathering! There’s truly something for everyone here, and the organizers do a great job of accepting a nice variety of vendor types. Even with the additional vendor spaces added along the south street (last year, only the north and east streets were used for the Guild Show), I feel like attendance growth was able to support the increase in artists and vendors.
I will certainly be applying for this event when apps open later this year and am excited to see how my booth grows with the event next year. Thank you so much for having me, Marietta the Gathering!
If anyone wants more details for anything, I'm happy to yap more about this event in the comments below, DMs on Instagram, or via email!