I had a terrific time at the Antiques & Uniques fair in Craftsbury this past Saturday!  I couldn't have done it without the help of my nephews Jamie and Edward, who helped me set up at 7:30 am, and Jamie and my sister Louisa, who helped me take it all home at 3:30.  In between I had a lovely time reconnecting with new people and some repeat customers from the Highland Center Winter Market last December.  The biggest stressor was the lack of reliable internet, although that got better as the day went on, and most of my customers were able and willing to use cash. 

Every show is different, with different size spaces to set up in, different wifi & cell phone connectivity, different set up times and distances to trek your display and products.  My location in the middle of Tent 2 was superb, and I had lovely vendors next to me and across the aisle.

I improved my display process and set up from past shows, and learned some new things!

Learning #1:  Do not use anything that can blow over!  The pegboard screen started out as a nice backing to my space, with a hanging mirror and my gemstone & Czech glass earrings on fire screen panels (that's Edward to the side):

There wasn't much of a wind, but the few gusts there were blew the screen down three times, even though we ended up taping it to one of the large tent poles.  

The last time it fell forward, it smashed into my wooden printer's type display board and sent all the polymer clay earrings flying, but luckily none of them broke!  Lesson learned.

Learning #2:   Simplify the setup and presentation

This worked pretty well! I had many of my earrings on the white tabletop pegboard stands -- which transported well from the gallery.  I also had them sorted into categories so that people who don't like birds or cats (imagine!) didn't have to wade through all those earrings to find ones they liked:

However,

Learning #3:  Split things up!  Everyone went right to the earrings and some never turned around to see the other table of necklaces.  Next time I'll try having both earrings and necklaces on each table and see if that makes a difference.

 Learning #4:  Raise the height of things.  That's apparently classic advice for craft show displays.  People like to see things more at eye level.  The booth behind me did a great job of that using wooden cartons.  I haven't figured out how I want to do that, but I think it would make for a more engaging display than having necklace stands in a row and everything else flat on the table as I did this time.  Displaying necklaces well is always a challenge.

Ah well, at least my new tablecloths looked great and pulled the booth together!   And I remembered to put out an email signup list, and info about the charities that 50% of our gross sales goes to.  

All in all it was a fun experience and a successful day, and I'm eager to see if there are other shows I might be able to be at in the year ahead!

Elizabeth