I’m looking for Arts and Craft fairs in northern Illinois?
I’m a small time crafter of painting birdhouses and I’m looking for some Arts and Crafts fairs to enter this summer, but every website needs a paid subscription for you to view any details! I’m not paying 30 dollars just to have a list of arts and crafts fairs 
Can someone help? I need to find arts and crafts fairs in or around Rockford, IL (50 mile radius is ok), and I need details like pricing and contact information if possible. I didn’t think this would be that hard! Any help would be most appreciated! Thank you 
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Well, the simple fact is that keeping track of fairs as they arise and disappear is a time consuming nuisance and either someone has to sell a bunch of advertising or charge admission. If you want to do it yourself, then go to last year’s newspapers for the period you want to start in and the area, and carefully read a few issues, especially the Weekend Calendar sections, until you find out how they report immediately upcoming events. From those collect as much information as you can and start calling around to see if they will repeat this year. You might also ask the librarian for help in booklets or newsletters for the area.
In Texas, there was a great surge of newsletters and craft malls about a decade ago and all of them have pretty much disappeared although I still get announcements of upcoming from the few I participated in.
There are two big ones I know of. One is held at the Odium in Villa Park, and the other at Arlington Race Track. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of the craft fair.
Have you tried Step by Step promotions? There is a crafter schedule. It’s a little bit east of Rockford, but some of the locations would probably work. Crystal lake is probably 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on what way you take.
http://www.stepbystepcraftshows.com/
You might check the back of some local crafting magazines. There is one published around here, I think in St. Charles, called Country Sampler. I believe they also have one or two store locations, one in lake zurich.
http://www.sampler.com/
good luck