I feel like I’m still searching for that answer. Beside the fact that I wanted an outlet to sell my products, something intrigued me about getting out and meeting people. The thing I really like about shows is getting immediate feedback on my products. Craft shows give me a connection with customers that I cannot get with online selling. When someone buys from my online store, I have no idea why they bought, or what compelled them to choose one item over another one. When a customer is in my booth, I can talk to them, get their comments, and actually tell the story behind the products.

Doing a show is hard work. You get up early, load a lot of heavy boxes into the trailer, find the venue, hunt for the show promoter, and finally find your booth spot. I use a Trimline canopy. Unlike the popular Ez-Up, the Trimline takes about four times longer to set up. It’s a heavy, professional grade canopy and even though I miss the ease of my old Ez-Up, I know that barring a hurricane, it will still be there the next day. The majority of my products are cutting boards, so the weight of all the products I take to a show is quite large. The products are transported in multiple large containers, each one weighing 75 to 100 pounds. I love shows where I can pull right up to my booth and unload. It makes getting these heavy boxes into the booth much easier. Some shows require you to dolly everything to the booth which can add a significant amount of setup time.

The hardest part of setting up the booth is getting the canopy up. Once that’s done, it’s just a matter of setting up tables, displays, and putting out the products. Most shows allow setup the day before the show starts. This takes a little pressure off since I can take my time. A few shows only allow day of the show setup which tends to crank up my blood pressure because you usually only get a couple of hours to setup before the crowd arrives. Once the show starts, I can finally relax. I have a director’s chair that I can sit in and watch the crowd, talk to potential customers, and hopefully enjoy good weather.

Tear down is generally low-keyed. I tend to take my time and wait to be the last one out because there is always a mad dash by hundreds of vendors trying to get their vehicles close to their booths. I learned to just take my time and wait until it clears out before getting my vehicle to my booth. It takes me a while to tear down anyway because I have to pack everything back in the appropriate container. I don’t want to re-pack when I get home because during the show season, everything stays packed and ready for the next show. All I have to do is replace inventory in each container.