What to put on a vendor application form
The questions worth asking on a market, food, or craft vendor application, and the ones that belong in your house rules instead of the form.
A vendor application should tell you whether this stall fits this market. It should not be a 40-line form that a baker abandons halfway through.
The vendor application form starts from a market, food, or craft set. You can drop questions and add up to four of your own, then print the form or download the column headers for a spreadsheet. Answers are not uploaded.
Ask these on almost every form
- Business name and the name of the person you will actually email.
- Email and phone. One of them will be wrong on a paper form; asking for both is worth the line.
- What they sell, in their words. “Products or menu” beats a vague category checkbox when you are trying not to book eight candle stalls.
- A website or social profile, so you can see the work.
- Stall size. A 3 metre frontage and a 6 metre frontage are different markets.
- Power. “Needs a socket” and “needs nothing” change the floor plan.
- Setup needs: a trestle, a water point, vehicle access, an early load-in.
- A notes line for the thing your template forgot.
Food stalls need two more lines
Add dietary and allergen information, and a line for the food permit or insurance details your venue expects. Those two are on the food starting set and off the market and craft sets. They are prompts for the documents you require. They are not a substitute for checking the rule that applies to your site.
Leave these off the first form
- Your full house rules. Link them or attach them. A form that repeats the rules gets contradictory answers.
- A price list for every SKU. You need the range, not the catalogue.
- Questions you will not use when you approve or decline. Every extra line lowers the number of finished forms.
Write the decision you still have to make at the top of the instructions: space, power, and whether their products clash with someone already accepted. The sample instruction on the tool is short on purpose. “Tell us about your business. The organizer will contact you about availability, pricing and next steps.”
When the same market runs again, a paper pile is the wrong filing system. Live vendor applications on Lineup Day keep the answers, the yes or no, and a booth fee in one place. Sketch the stalls first in the booth map so “stall size” on the form matches a space you can actually point at.
Good to know
Will a printable vendor form collect applications online?
No. The free tool makes a printable form and a CSV header row. It does not store submissions. A Lineup Day event can collect vendor applications online, record a decision, and charge a booth fee.
Is the food vendor form a permit checklist?
No. Food permits, insurance, and handling rules depend on the event and the local authority. Ask for the documents you and the venue actually need.
How many extra questions can I add?
Up to four custom questions, on top of the questions you keep from the market, food, or craft starting set.