Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Giovanna Ventola. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Giovanna, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Bizarre Bazaar started selfishly; I wanted a place to sell the kids book I wrote where I was also in control of my earning potential.

I lost my job during Covid and found myself unemployed for 7 months during the winter of 2020/2021. Winter in Chicago is depressing and being jobless with Covid fatigue made it significantly worse. I had to find a way to get myself up and motivated every single day. Between Peloton rides and bundled up dog walks, I dove into some passion projects I’d been wanting to start.

I wrote and self-published a children’s book telling the story of my rescue pup Waylon and his journey to his forever home with me. I use the book to give back to children experiencing foster care who are on their own journey home. I could go on and on about this… but that’s a story for another article… so here’s how it ties into Bizarre Bazaar…

1000 copies of Waylon’s World arrived at my doorstep and I had to find a way to sell them. Maker’s Markets are big in Chicago; there’s one (or five) to shop at almost every weekend. I quickly realized they can be exclusive and ridiculously expensive for vendors… so after a bit of research I decided it would be just as lucrative and even more rewarding to do it myself. I reached out to one of my favorite event spaces, booked a date, and then started stalking every local maker I could find on Instagram.

Luckily, I have two very creative and intelligent best friends who believed in my idea enough to join me and bring it to life. I’m the logistics gal who managed planning, communication, finances, organization, emails, scheduling, etc., Luce is our brilliant designer who created the branding, look, and vibe for our visual assets, and Courtney is our social queen who understands who/what/when/why/how to post on social media and create an organic following. Our strengths are complimentary and we fill in the gaps for for each other’s self perceived weaknesses; we’re basically the big 3 of maker’s markets (someone in Chicago reading this will get a good laugh…)!

Bizarre Bazaar is a Chicago pop up market dedicated to celebrating and supporting diverse creatives.

After our first meeting we decided our market had to be three things;

1.) It had to be inclusive for our makers, attendees, and social audience. This was a nonnegotiable. We wanted all creators to feel comfortable applying and participating. We wanted attendees to be able to afford and enjoy shopping at the event. We wanted our social media audience to feel welcomed into the world we were creating.

2.) Our market had to be affordable (and profitable) for our amazing creators. Vendors are the backbone of any maker’s market and we were going to treat them that way. Markets charge anywhere from $300-$2,000 just to participate in an event and some even take a cut of sales… As a new creator I simply could not stomach that upfront cost to show up and sell books. I know it sounds backwards but it made more sense to shell out the money for my own event so that I could plan the market my way.

3.) Bizarre Bazaar had to be fun enough for people to feel comfy and stay a while! The one thing I hate about pop up markets is the anxiety that starts to build as soon as I get past the door. A walking path is already chosen for me, I feel like I have to see every table before making any purchases because what if the candles on one end smell better to me than candles on the other?!, I can’t double back because it’s like swimming upstream… and then I end up at the exit with nothing. There’s nowhere to sit, nowhere to grab a bite to eat, nowhere to stop and chat… it’s definitely not a vibe and we wanted our world to be a vibe.

So here’s what we did…

Vendors were only charged $100 for their booth. We supplied the table, chairs, electricity, marketing assets, food, water, drinks, and more. They also got 4 tickets to giveaway to their followers absolutely free. Every single vendor ended the day profitable and we have the stats to prove it.

Attendees paid $10 and got free drinks, food, and raffle tickets with their entry fee. Most people walked out winning some type of prize and everyone enjoyed the sandwiches, snacks, water, and hard kombucha donated by local businesses. We were also told by vendors that the quality of attendees was high; meaning they spent money at more than one booth. Keeping them fed, hydrated, and entertained allowed them to double back to different booths and have meaningful conversations with the creators.

We treated the market like a party – there were high top tables to chill at, a lounge area with comfy couches, a foosball table, giant connect four, live music, a dance party, tarot card readings, and more.

Our first Bizarre Bazaar was a huge success and we are already starting to plan the next one!

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Bizarre Bazaar has three cofounders (including myself) and we happen to also be great friends.

I’ll start with Luce… we met just before the pandemic on a wig themed bar crawl birthday trolley. They are from the UK so our friendship started virtually with lots of zoom chats and FaceTimes. We’re both imaginative so it was easy for us to talk about those random 3am business ideas that you don’t typically say out loud. Luce is an extremely talented artist and I hired them to illustrate Waylon’s World. When they (finally) were able to move to Chicago to get their masters we were able to workshop our ideas in person. Luce was the first person I trusted with my market idea and their immediate positive reaction made me want to keep going.

The first time I met Courtney was picking out decorations for a friend’s birthday at Party City. She had on this long (fake) fur jacket and I remember thinking I’m definitely not that cool. Courtney is encouraging and inspires people with her confidence. As we got to know each other, she shared that she has a side hustle helping local businesses with their social media so when the idea for Bizarre Bazaar sparked I knew I had to have her work on it with me. Courtney lit up when I explained my thoughts and was ready to bring her energy to the table too.

Coincidentally the three of us are friends so it was easy to have fun creating this new thing together!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Direct communication is the best way to keep in touch with our creators, event attendees, and social audience. We run all of our own social media, answer all. DMs directly, and reply to every email. You will always get in touch with one of us.

We also found that asking and encouraging genuine feedback is the best way to build trust with our creators, event attendees, and social audience. We take all comments seriously and will always find a way to implement suggestions from our followers.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bizarrebazaarchicago
• Other: Founders Social Media Accounts @giovanna.ventola @readwaylonsworld @cdavidek @tarotcourt @lucebedrawing @laidbackluce

Image Credits
Photographs from the event are by Amy Schult.