Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A Peek into Trade Show World

I thought it would be fun to show you what it's like to set up for a trade show, so I took mini-videos during different stages of my set up at the Buyer's Market of American Craft. This starts about an hour into set up, after I unloaded all the boxes from the palette, carted the palette out of the way, dragged my tables into position and hung up one curtain. That's about when I remembered that my video camera was in my purse.
This is not the best video, and some of the shots will seem repetitive, but if you look carefully you'll see things have changed. (small changes to you, but a there is lot of work done between each shot.) Setting up a 15 foot booth alone is about a 6-8 hour process. Some artist's set up is simpler and shorter, and some are incredibly elaborate, including the building of walls and other major structures and can take a couple of days.
The last sequence was taken the morning of the show just before it started. I wish could have showed you all the other beautiful booths and interviewed other artists but we are not allowed to have cameras on the show floor during the show. (this is a very good rule, which protects the artists.)
Feel free to ask questions if you have any. Enjoy.