Monday, October 11, 2010

Taking The Show On The Road

Ngaire and I were given the opportunity to have a booth at the First Annual ‘Slow’ Fibre Festival last weekend. The intention was to revive, promote and perpetuate the intrinsic concept of locally sourced and created products. This would be our first foray out on our own, so with a little trepidation we decided to ‘take the show on the road’. The first thing we decided to do was do a mock up of how we wanted the booth to look. Michael dragged his sawhorses onto the deck and we had a chance to try everything out.
Thankfully our display racks from the studio are portable and they stood up by themselves.We got to the Youth Centre in Summerland and saw that we had been assigned two tables against the wall. This was wonderful, we could really go to town and give all the scarves room to glow! We made a mistake on the tea towels by having the hang tags showing in front – they were soon turned over and the tags were put at the back. Most of the vendors were selling fleeces, roving, and dyed locks with some end products knitted and woven. We were the only booth with only hand woven accessories.We dropped the four Chenille scarves onto the table and with a bit of creative rolling, I think they look wonderful! This was how we left the booth on Friday night after set up; I think it looks pretty good! On Saturday morning, after getting up at 5 a.m. and driving for 1-1/2 hours to make the 8 a.m. opening we moved the lights to the front of the table and everything came to life.
Since we had been given an additional table, we brought another mannequin and more props and played around with the set up on Saturday morning. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the improvements we made.

I’m so happy that we went to the “First Annual Slow Fibre Festival” as it was very profitable for us and it was such a nice first experience for Ngaire and me. The Desert Sage Spinners and Weavers Guild were our hosts and they were wonderfully organized and hopefully we will be there again next year!

5 comments:

dorothylochmaben said...

Hi Lynnette - i love the pictures of your display ! It has given me some useful hints for the next time I venture out to a craft fair ! I loved the rolled up chenille scarves they stole the show !

Dorothy

Cindie said...

wherever did you get that incredible display for your scarves? I love it! they look beautiful hanging like that. I'm always looking for nice ways to display my scarves that are portable and light weight.

Lynnette said...

Hi Cindy,
There is a shop in Kelowna that sells retail store fixtures and display items at really good prices. The ones I bought are called 'gridwall panels' and they have a huge variety of hangers and baskets that you can get to go with them. I just bought the hanging display forms that I put in the centre void for under $10.00 a piece and every scarf I showed on them sold! If you google 'gridwall panels' you can find lots of US distributors.
Cheers
Lynnette

Unknown said...

love the set up of your booth!

bspinner said...

Very nice display!!!! I love they way you displayed your chenille scarves! Great idea!