If I didn’t love doing the darned things so much… This weekend marked the first effort at a fall show by my local community. It was better than their spring show this year and I did make several times my table fee. And the organizer, this time around, was very open to ideas about improving and making it better.
Next year, alas, I won’t be living in this community! Boo! Hiss! So I’ll miss seeing it evolve.
On the plus side, I had the most amusing situation happen! A complete stranger walked up to me at the show, even before I’ve begun setting up. She introduces herself as Mailled, from Etsy. Now, introducing yourself by your online nickname is not that uncommon to me but it still warrants a bit of a look. So I got to sit and chat with Angela of mailled.etsy.com and her mom of grandmarose.etsy.com For icing on the cake, it turned out that Mailled was my secret Santa in our Alberta Street Team’s gift exchange! I got to pick goodies from them! Woohoo!
I make a lot of simple bead on a cord type pendants and they are good sellers. Shiny, pretty bead on a comfy, casual cord. Win. But my previous necklace board was not inviting people to admiring the masses of them or take them off and play with them. People would touch the few laid on the table around it but not the ones on the display. I needed something a little more casual, fun and inviting! Enter a box of brightly coloured (Christmas light like?) pushpins and one of my old cork board. And a MASS of pendants.
It got people to stop and look which is more than half the battle at shows.
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I think I may have to steal your corkboard idea… I have such trouble figuring out how to display my pendant necklaces!
I was using a much more traditional multiple necklace board / bust before and people were afraid to touch the dang things.
Jumbled and crazy as this board is, it’s gotten people to touch the pendants. And then they buy.
You could totally doll out your board in some of your cool fabrics!
Oh I had a craft show lament of my own here: http://melscuriosityshoppe.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/post-flea-fatigue/
and I always encounter the same problem! People will come by, stop and say ‘how pretty’, ‘oh so unique’ and then walk away without buying anything! And they usually only look at the items displayed on the tabletop – they don’t look at the stands! :/ I think I need to work on making my stands ‘stand’ out more!
I see some of my beads in your pieces Melissa! yay!
As far as displays – maybe it’s not a matter of the racks not standing out but perhaps standing out too much? I keep my fixtures as plain as I can so that my work stands out.
I know some people who have fancy, eclectic fixtures like yours and what they’ve done is use a larger, plain coloured hang tag or box for each major piece to give it a neutral backdrop in the more complex display.