Customer Story
How DFW Fiber Fest Collected 80% of Vendor Payments on Day One Using Eventeny
Highlights
DFW Fiber Fest moved vendor management from a fully manual process to one platform in its first full year on Eventeny
Eliminated separate vendor contracts by building terms directly into the application
Collected at least 80% of vendor payments on a single scheduled charge date
New vendors discovered DFW Fiber Fest through Eventeny
Comic-Con, but for yarn
Now entering its 22nd year, DFW Fiber Fest is one of the largest regional fiber arts festivals in the US. Each year at the Irving Convention Center, it brings together knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, and dyers for a 50,000-square-foot marketplace and four days of classes taught by regional, national, and international instructors.
In 2026, the festival expanded, taking over the entire convention center for the first time and filling two floors with classes for more than 800 students. Finer Arts enthusiasts come from all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Some vendors drive trailers full of yarn across the country to sell there.
A volunteer board runs all of it. Nobody is paid, and planning takes all year.
"One way that we often describe it is that it is like Comic-Con, but for yarn."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
Before Eventeny:
No system, no staff, and months of chasing payments
Before becoming president, Tanya spent three and a half years managing DFW Fiber Fest's vendors. The process she inherited was entirely manual.
Every vendor went through three separate steps. Tanya created the contracts. The treasurer issued the invoices. Then Tanya matched each invoice to its contract, sent it to the vendor, and chased down payments for months. Vendors paid whenever they chose, and many missed the deadline.
After one full year of owning that process, Tanya drew a line.
"I immediately said, we have to find a tool... This is insane to do it all manually."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
One application that handles the paperwork
In 2025, a Google Sheet crashed in the middle of Fanatics Fest. It was the afternoon of Day 1 and around 60 athletes, celebrities, and cultural icons were moving through activations, stages, and photo ops across multiple floors of the Javits Center in New York.
"Just imagine Friday afternoon you have probably about 60 talent in the building, you have stages going, and now your only way to look at schedules in one place is dead..."
The solution:
One application that handles the paperwork
DFW Fiber Fest joined Eventeny in August 2025, just before that year's festival. The team set up its 2026 event fast enough to open vendor applications while the 2025 show was still running.
Contracts were the first thing to go into the vendor management software. Instead of sending individual contracts, the team moved every term into the application itself, attached a full copy, and made agreement part of applying. Vendors had no issue with the change.
Invoicing went next. Eventeny now generates invoices, sends reminders automatically, and collects payment. The treasurer no longer bills by hand, and Tanya no longer spends months following up.
"It handles all of that beautifully. We don't have to manually generate and follow up constantly."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
"We were blown away by just how easy it was and how much it improved the timing of our cash flow."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
The impact:
80% of the cash in the bank on day one
The biggest surprise wasn't the time saved on event management. It was cash flow.
Working inside Eventeny's payment settings gave the team an idea they wouldn't have had otherwise. They collected payment information with each application, then charged every accepted vendor on one publicized date.
Some board members understandably hesitated. Many of the festival's vendors are artists running very small businesses, and the board worried about overdrafts. They researched how peer festivals handled payments, found they were stricter, and set the date. Eventeny sent reminders automatically as the date got closer.
Few vendors chose the payment plan option. At least 80% of vendor revenue arrived on the first charge date. After that, the only collections left were a handful of second installments and backfilled booths from late drops.
Fees covered, booth prices steady
Moving vendor payments to card processing was a real trade-off for a nonprofit. For 2026, the team raised booth prices to absorb the fees. For 2027, booth prices stay the same and processing fees pass through to vendors. That widens the festival's margin a second time without another price increase. It's one more way the move to event management software paid for itself.
A market where 80% of booths sell yarn
Laying out roughly 200 booth spaces takes care when most vendors sell the same category. DFW Fiber Fest assigns every booth itself. The team honors requests where it can, keeps returning vendors in spaces they like, and places neighbors so they don't compete head-to-head. Vendors selling tools, project bags, and looms are spread across the floor to break up long stretches of yarn.
Asked which Eventeny tool she couldn't live without:
"The whole vendor module itself. Mapping is a close second."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
New vendors, found through Eventeny
DFW Fiber Fest didn't expect Eventeny to help with recruiting. In its first full year, new vendors applied after finding the festival on Eventeny's event management software .
"We have had new vendors come to us this year because of Eventeny. They discovered us through your platform. That also was a surprise to us."
Tanya Warner, President, DFW Fiber Fest
Why Fanatics Events is building with Eventeny
For the Fanatics team, Eventeny is a real-time operational backbone for managing some of the most in-demand talent in the world, in one of the most complex event environments in the industry.
What keeps the partnership working is that Eventeny takes feedback from our organizers seriously. Our bulk upload feature, for instance, was built in direct response to how the Fanatics team needed to work.
"You keep moving forward with it. You take the feedback from your clients and you listen and you work it into the program to make it better."