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A few weeks ago a friend of mine offered me a FREE booth at a Men's Health Fair. I was most excited to have the opportunity to "practice" hosting my first booth. I have never hosted a booth before so I asked Stormy Designs for some tips since she shared in the Etsyblogger forum that she was hosting a booth as well. She sent me to a blog that had some great tips and a neat checklist. I tweaked it and used it to help guide me regarding my supply and set up needs. Set up was required the Friday before the Fair so with my checklist and supplies in hand I went to the venue location. To my pleasant surprise, each table had beautiful white table cloths and my table even had a chair! On top of that, I found out that both a buffet breakfast, lunch AND and a ticket for a drawing to win one of about 20 prizes were included with my booth! WOOT! WOOT! I did not win any prizes (would have LOVED to win tht giant George Foreman Grill) but those full course buffet meals were DELICIOUS! I finished my preliminary set up and felt I was set to arrive at 7:30 am the following morning!
Saturday (to my shame) I arrived about 15 minutes late! That is what I get for going to see "He's just not that into you" with my girlfriends so I didn't get home until 1:00 am! Great chick flick by the way! Anyway, I had to scramble to get my jewelry items and a few other things out on the table. When I arrive the place was already overflowing with men! I got a little nervous because most of the men were older and I really wasn't confident they would be interested in buying their wives gifts for Valentine's Day!A few things I did were
- have a jewelry give away
- Put blank note cards out with a sign that said write your loved one a note letting her know how much she means to you for just .25 cents. Mostly did this to draw people to my table and only wanted to try to recoupe my cost for the cards!
The short of it is although I had a goal of making $237 (the cost of all my supplies and jewelry items created for this venue), I only sold $21 worth of jewelry and cards!
BUT....the great thing is that I did some great networking and as a result
- I booked another booth for 6/27/09
- I got a custom order from an organization that wants bracelets and earrings and another organization took my card in hopes of doing the same!
What are some of the experiences you have had with hosting jewelry booths?
5 comments:
Your setup looked good. Getting yourself out there, get seen, that's the ticket ;-) Thanks for the mention.
Congratulations on your first showing your set=up looked great. Love the idea of the gift giveaway - always attracts people to your booth. Don't be discouraged by low sales, just it as a learning experience - each show you learn more - also networking is a big plus! I have done a few articles on my blog about doing craft fairs. I will find one of them and send it to you, and possibly re-enter it on my blog. Believe your next one will be a total success!
Congrats on your first show! Your set up looked great :) Some shows will be "duds" but at least you learned a lot, got your feet wet, did some networking, and made some jewelry!
Congrats...it sounds like the show went well :)
I hope your one in June goes well too!
Unique - looks really nice! And a free set-up - you can't complain! lol You never know what the event will bring back your way... Great networking, and congrats on the custom order! They picked YOU out of all the other artists there! Now, that's special!
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