anatomy of a booth

As promised, this is my recap of the Country Living Fair last weekend at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The weather completely cooperated and gave us four beautiful days of autumn sunshine. What luck! Being a busy vendor at the show, I had little time to wander and photograph the other booths and events at the show. I've decided to just give you the perspective from my little corner of the fair and share a few tips I discovered along the way....


A 10' x 10' tent is a big white cave to decorate and make enticing for busy shoppers to enter. We had a prime location, just off the main entry to the show. My photographer (read: hubby) had 2 vinyl banners made for the side walls of the tent. He ordered them from epingo and they turned out great!


This shot shows my view from behind the table looking out. Foreground: Cupcake Mountain, Background: Squash Mountain...gotta love it! (see previous post for full view of squash)


This next little bit of genius came from my VP of Marketing (read again: hubby).
1) Wrapping station. He stacked 2 bins (used for toting inventory) and made a table top for the ream of tissue to lay on.
2) I draped the bins with a table cloth and stashed bags in an open bin under the main table within easy reach.
3) Rather than ask people to add their name to an email list, we created a contest! Drop your name and email in the box for a chance to win a cupcake pincushion. I think people felt like it was worth their time to give me their email if it meant they might get something in return.
4) "Show Only" gift wrap for the pincushions. A surprising number of people wanted this service, it worked out well.


For this show I really tried to cross merchandise my table. Rather than put all of the bird pouches in one place and all of the journals in another, I tried to create little color stories and vignettes. it was fun!

I was able to meet several of the editors from Country Living Magazine. They were all very friendly, professional and obviously love their jobs. If you want to see more of what the show had to offer, check out Country Living and Country Living on Demand. In the coming weeks there will be a "scrapbook" of the show on their websites.