This spring, I had the immense pleasure of being a vendor at two markets around Alberta! I don’t get to do too many markets & craft shows these days, so doing TWO (on back-to-back weekends) was a pretty big deal for me! There were lots of reasons to be excited, including having actual booths at both markets instead of a single table, and focusing primarily on selling my Love Catcher & Dreamcatcher designs. Today I’m sharing how I tackled my display at the shows.
Each market had a different size booth space, and as you discover doing craft shows, display setup can change {a lot or just a little} EVERY single time. There’s so many variables at each market: who your vendor neighbor is & what kind of setup they have, whether you luck out with wall space behind you or a spot on the corner of an aisle. Even the vibe of a show & the type of customers on a particular day can dictate re-thinking your display.
Be flexible and have several options for display
I was fortunate with my first market this spring to have a 10′ x 10′ booth, basically as big as it gets. It gave me plenty of room to be flexible with my display. I had never attended the market, and so didn’t have any idea what to expect. A week before the show, I marked out the booth size on the floor in the basement with some painter’s tape and I played around with a few different ways to setup my larger display units. I suggest you TAKE PHOTOS with your phone of the mock set-up, so once you get to the show {and your stress level is high & the excitement is building} you can actually remember what some of your plans were. A quick glance through pics on your phone should keep you on track. While I was doing my mock setup for the 10′ x 10′ booth at home, I also marked out the smaller booth size, 8′ x 8′ and determined some display options for that, at the same time.
Determine your work flow
When you’re considering your booth design, keep in mind how YOU will move around in it. Do you need space behind a table? Do you need a spot to sit? Where will you interact with customers? Where will you take payment or bag up purchases? How will you get to additional stock, if needed? Once you sort out your own work flow, you’ll be able to envision what’s needed {and what’s not} in your booth. Each vendor needs different things to make them comfortable. I’m an introvert, which means, I need to have a spot behind a table where I can retreat for small snippets of renewal & to feel comfortable. I would never be comfortable, sitting in a chair in the middle or to the side of my booth. I spend a lot of time out from behind my table {especially in a larger booth}, but for my own sanity, I need a table to get behind.
You can see how the different booth size determines how much of your display changes. In the 10′ x 10′ booth, I was able to have a 6′ table, a 4′ table and all three of my folding pegboards expanded, with lots of room for customers {and myself} to move around in the space. In the 8′ x 8′ booth, I went down to one 6′ table, my three folding pegboards {overlapped & not fully expanded} and a clothing rack. This worked because I lucked out with a spot right at the end of an aisle, so it was a corner space & I could simply step out into the side aisle to move from behind my table to into the booth. If I had a neighbor on both sides, this set-up would not have worked. I would have gone down to a 4′ table {which I had brought along in the truck, just in case… come prepared for a couple scenarios}.
One of my favourite display items for hanging product is a simple clothing rack {bought mine at Ikea}. You can take them apart, so they travel & store in flat pieces, and you can adjust their height and the height of the your whole display by setting it on a table or floor. Also, if you get metal ones, you can use simple magnets to hang thing from them, making it easy for customers to interact with your product. I actually sell button magnets at the shows, but I also use them to hang my Love Catchers from the rack.
My new favourite display item are the pegboards that my dad helped me build. They are two panels of pegboard, framed with wood on the backside for stability, and hinged together. The fold very flat for travel & storage and they aren’t too heavy for me to handle. I have three sets, which makes them the most flexible display option to date that we have built. Depending on the space, they can be placed in a zigzag configuration or they can be overlapped in lots of different ways to fit into smaller spaces, or I can just use one or two of them.
I painted most of the pegboards white on the front, with one dark grey. Customers did appreciate being able to hold up particular designs against the darker colour, as they decided what would look good in a room.
Display is all about play, play, play
Throughout both markets, I played around with how I arranged product on the pegboards. Product placement is one of those things you can’t necessarily plan until you see how customers interact with your product. Different days of the markets drew different folks, and I switched which product I featured based on how things were going {One evening, people seemed to be really looking for dreamcatchers for boys, so I moved those toward the front. The next day, people were focusing on things for girls, so I moved the product for boys toward the back, etc.}. Try it out, adjust, simplify, add a bit, play around.
I’m all about DETAILS!
So when my dad and I finished the pegboard displays, I realized using just plain metal hooks was not going to be good enough. I spent two evenings, gluing large colourful buttons onto the ends of every single hook. Not only did this addition make the hooks “on brand” with Bubblegum Sass, they were very functional (kept product from slipping off), and added more character to the display. When I looked at the pegboards with my unique hooks, it was very satisfying and left me with that “ahhhhh” feeling, which means they did their job. If things aren’t feeling quite right with your display, consider looking at some of the details. Is there something you could add or change, that would bring it all together? For me, it was the hooks. For others, it might be the table coverings, or how you tackle signage, or the bins/bowls/crates/plates that you are using on a table display. Small changes can bring the whole thing together.