Building A Booth

I'll write another whole post to tell why I've disappeared for so long again. I stop writing when life gets extra tough. Who wants to hear about that stuff, right?

In the last two days, I've squeezed in the time to work on the booth that I'll need for shows later this Summer and beyond. I decided that, rather than using some kind of booth that a) costs me lots of money or b) takes lots of time and effort to set up, I'd do some research and find a DIY booth design that fits all of my criteria.

1. It has to look good. Customers decide whether to come into the booth based on how it looks from the outside. They also decide whether to trust a vendor, partly, based on how professional they look.

2. It has to pack down small. I want to use a single van to carry the booth, the merchandise, a demo loom, an assistant, and the camping setup.

3. It has to set up fast, be stable once it's up, and tear down even faster.

I was looking for booth plans online, prepared to pay for a good design if I needed to. And then, a few weeks ago I was in Eugene to look at potential sales venues for next year. I stumbled into the Eugene Saturday Market and saw a booth design that I loved before I even got in the door. I asked the vendor about it and was told that someone else built it for them. Then, the vendor next door piped up and said, "It's the standard booth for this show. They have the plans on the website."

Well, sure enough! As I looked around the market I noticed that many of the booths were of that same design, and it looks great! I went to the website, printed out the design and went to the hardware store with their parts list in hand.

Here's the link to this booth design: BOOTH PLANS


Here is the process that ensued...

...and it was too dark to photograph by the time I finished...

The next thing to do is design and build the clothing racks, checkstand, and canvas cover. It looks like it'll be ready just in time for my first solo show in August.