Craft Show Booth Setups

[DBourdon]

Hi All,

I've been reading articles about craft show setups. The Peterson article in the Summer 2005 issue was very informative. However, I have a few questions for the regular craft show participants:

How does one get their awning, tables, shelves, scroll work etc. to the show if one does not have a trailer, van, pick up or station wagon?

What 10x10 booth layouts have you found to be effective?

How do you display your work?

Thank you in advance for sharing.

Don

[Forester21]

Don - what do you have for transportation?? You may need to rent something for the day/weekend if your regular mode of transportation won't hold everything.
Booth layouts vary so much depending on what you are using to display your work, and what work you have. Ornaments that you hang will be displayed differently than shelves or wall hangings.
Have you wandered some shows lately looking at the displays rather than (in addition to) what is displayed?
Theresa

[Janette]

I think our booth takes up more room than our stock. We use a white pop up for outdoor shows but only walls for indoors. Didn't want to pay the price for pro panels, which is what a lot of vendors use. We made our own from marine grade carpeting and 2x2's. The marine carpet doesn't stretch like others.

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[DBourdon]

Theresa--many of the shows that I'm aware of in the area are outside. The display setups I saw were the reason for my questions. I have a Santa Fe with approx 4'x6' of cargo area. I will need to design a vertical system to fit.

Janette -- very nice set up. Now all I need is a trailer or be contented with working indoor shows with limited wall space. Are those unframed portraits you have in the red milk crate? I've been doing a lot of portraits of late and that would sure reduce the amount of vertical display space required. Thanks for the photos.

Don

[Janette]

Originally Posted by DBourdon

Janette -- very nice set up. Now all I need is a trailer or be contented with working indoor shows with limited wall space. Are those unframed portraits you have in the red milk crate? I've been doing a lot of portraits of late and that would sure reduce the amount of vertical display space required. Thanks for the photos.

Don

Caravan canopies don't take up a ton of room for outdoor shows- you can get them at costco for under $200. We have a honda mini van and although things fit better when we used lattice walls, everything fits-just barely. You can design walls to fit within your available space and assemble when you get to the show- check out propanels (if you've got bucks to spend) - or just for ideas. The red milk crate serves 2 purposes- it transports Kevin's 8x10 fractal prints and once at the show he puts them in flipper racks - then I use them for my cat silhouettes that are the same size. Got it pretty cheap. You should have as many as you have room for hanging and use the bin as an overflow and/or for unframed pieces/ If you're going to be selling stuff that would hang in the home- I think it's best to display it that way in your booth. In ours, the panels aren't as tall as they look. We used 2x4 "feet" that plug into the walls with dowels. 1x2 braces on top with dowels to lock the pieces together. For versitility, most are 2 panels hinged together and fold in half for transport, we also have a couple of single ones as well. the nice thing with this marine carpet is that it acts like one side of velcro. Kevin sticks a small piece of "the other side" to the back of his prints and can just stick them anywhere on the wall. They come off easily and are repositioned easily as well. He buys those rolls of self adhesive velcro and cuts it up into little 3/4" strips.

[PuzzledMoose]

One possibility : have a look in Walmart ... round here last summer they had a 10x10 cheapo imitation of the EZ-up canopies for around $100.

We got one last year and it works fine - when it's packed up it will go in the trunk of a Honda Civic without even dropping the seats. With 2 people takes just over 5 mins to put up and less to take down.

A couple that we met at a craft show last fall had some neat shelving that the guy had made. The frames were made in three hinged sections, about 6 ft high and perhaps 10 inches wide with cross pieces. When they were standing (like a slightly more open Z in plan view - kind of like a hinged clothes airer/drier) his shelves just slid in and sat on the cross pieces ... the seemd amazing stable and easily fitted into his car with the seats dropped ..

Hope that last piece of gibberish makes sense to other people as well as me ..

[Forester21]

Originally Posted by DBourdon

Theresa--many of the shows that I'm aware of in the area are outside. The display setups I saw were the reason for my questions. I have a Santa Fe with approx 4'x6' of cargo area. I will need to design a vertical system to fit.

4 x 6' will fit a lot actually. As others mentioned, the EZ up tents fit into a small (relatively anyway) bag - maybe 4 foot high and you can wrap your arms around it.

I used to have a link to a place that sells display units - can't find it right now. But you should be able to google "portable craft show displays" and get to some sites. They are built to fold and take the least amount of room as possible.
theresa

[Forester21]

here's the site I was thinking of: http://www.woodlandmarketing.com/products.htm

It gives you an idea of what displays are out there - you can always make your own if you don't want to purchase any.

[groverd]

as a added item, during the Christmas season we set up a christmas tree with ornements on it. we started doing this about 5 years ago, now our ornement sales are a large part of our sales. The customers just pick what they want off the tree. . we started with the idea it would be a nice decoration but WOW what it to sales is amazing, and none of our ornements are over $5. Not unusual to have $5-600 sold in three days

[Janette]

Originally Posted by PuzzledMoose

One possibility : have a look in Walmart ... round here last summer they had a 10x10 cheapo imitation of the EZ-up canopies for around $100.

..

Only thing to look out for is many shows require a white canopy only- no colored one, or the back yard type that splay outward.