crowspice:
Here in Massachusetts I believe we have something simular to what you are explaining. At the beginning of the season, The FMFM sent us out paper work that had a spot on it to list types of vendors/products that you are interested in obtaining. Unfortunately I'm not real good with the computer, so I haven't really dug to far into the actual website. However, I have received emails from the FMFM that did in fact list what types of vendors the various markets were looking for. I also have received several emails from vendors that were interested in joining our market.

Heidi,
Thanks for the response. Can you tell me what the initials FMFM stand for? And what is the website about which you speak? Tho it is specific to Massachusetts, it might have some usefulness in trying to introduce this service to other state depts of agriculture. I would be interested in taking a peek at their website. At all but the very BEST farmers markets there seems to be this problem of filling all the spaces. Of course the more well-rounded the market is, the more customers will shop there - which helps all the vendors while also filling those gaps. As vendors we are always urging our market managers to fill those spots with diversified things; oftentimes, since most of us do more than one market, we can even suggest a possible vendor. On the other hand, oftentimes the mgrs moan and whine that they cannot find vendors to fill spaces. This is true once the season starts and vendors are settled into markets, but even then, sometimes a vendor will find it not to be a good "fit" and may wish to go elsewhere - if only he or she knew what was immediately available!
A circular problem it would appear! Surely the state dept of ag could do something for their oft-neglected specialty growers to facilitate match-ups! I hope others will jump into this dialogue. Bureaucratic bumbling aside, this would be quite a nice (and not all that expensive) link between growers and markets. I would like to see Illinois do it and will consider approaching "them" once I have some more data/suggestions. Thanks again Heidi. How about the rest of you out there? Anything in your respective states?

crowspice:
If you type in Farmers Markets of Massachusetts,it brings up the info for the FMFM (I believe it is Federation of Massachusetts farmers Markets) As a Market Manager, I still have vendors coming to me to join our market. Now that our market is growing ,we now have 21-23 vendors, more vendors want to join. As a manager,I find that in order to get certain types of vendors(a baker for example) I really have to spread the word and do some searching.

try this site and see if that is what you want
http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?lat=35.91335&lon=-96.72545&scale=4&ty=-1&co=1&nm=