But attending wedding fayres can cost a lot of money so you need to consider whether it's worth attending and, equally, it's worth considering if you can afford not to. Clearly if you're booked for every weekend of the year then there's no need to increase your bookings. But for most of us there's always scope to pick up more weddings or start filling the calendar for future years.

Before signing up to a wedding fayre, my main tip is for you to consider what it is you want to achieve from exhibiting. In fact, this is my golden tip for evaluating any form of marketing; to consider what you want to achieve before you carry out any marketing activity. The obvious aim is usually to increase the number of bookings, but for me my main aim initially was to meet the couples who had already booked me at my residency.

If your aim is to take bookings I'd suggest having a target number in mind, with the idea of covering the cost of the fayre. Your first wedding fayre will be difficult to judge as you won't have a benchmark, so don't beat yourself up if you don't achieve the number on the day. You’ve now got a more accurate idea on what to expect from a wedding fayre.

It's also important to remember that not everyone will book you on the day; some people will go away, think about it and then get back to you. Where possible, try to make a note of people you speak to so if they do enquire at a later stage you'll know the wedding fayre was a likely factor for them booking you.

Some companies will offer a discount at the wedding fayre so that couples will mention the wedding fayre when they book to get their discount. You don't necessarily reduce your fees, it might be that you can offer an upgrade or throw in something of low value to you that means a lot to the couple (such as opening up an online request system, or perhaps including some uplighters).

One trick I've heard before is for a company to tell the couples that the prices are going up after the wedding fayre, but the current price will be valid if they mention the wedding fayre. If there’s a chance of saving money, then couples will likely mention the wedding fayre!

Back to planning a wedding fayre, it's worthwhile doing your research to work out which ones will benefit you the most. Some wedding fayres have a specific theme, so if your specialty is a rustic wedding it might be more beneficial to focus on a wedding fayre with a rustic theme. It’s worthwhile researching when and where the wedding fayres are in your area. You wouldn’t want to sign up to a small wedding fayre that clashes with another major event in the same area that could attract potential visitors away.

It's also worthwhile trying to find out how many guests are expected to attend. If it's a regular event you could pop along to see for yourself the other suppliers who attend or ask around to see what your contacts suggest. Equally it's worth checking if there will be other DJs exhibiting or not. Being the sole DJ can be an advantage but if it's a really big wedding fayre with lots of attendees that might not be such an issue.

For many years I didn't bother exhibiting at wedding fayres as I was happy with the number of bookings I got each year, so I deemed them a waste of my time and money.

However, I realised that many of my clients at my regular hotel were attending their wedding fayre so I decided to pop down and offer to meet as many of my clients as I could. This meant that I was consolidating my meetings with my clients into one day rather than meeting on separate days.As a result, my attendance at wedding fayres has been a success. The fact that I also pick up extra bookings is a bonus.

So, you’ve done your research and found a wedding fayre (or two) to attend. What next? Back to planning; start thinking about what you will need for the wedding fayre: