Examples of displays (and some new friends)...

Your booth is as much part of your design as your product.  Here's an example from Jezroc Jewelry:

The first thing I noticed from this booth, run by Matt and Jen Quanrud, was the large fountain displays that flanked both sides of their booth.  These were large spheres covered in a mosaic of beads.  In the base of the stand is more beads and a metal price tag of $650 or $750.  These are actually fountains that are just beautiful!

What this is designed for is draw.  These pieces aren't actually designed to sell at your average craft show, but shoppers see these beautiful art pieces and it draws them into the booth to see what else this artist has.  Very effective from what I saw today.

Right behind this particular fountain is a great tri-fold partition that Jen & Matt have used to showcase other works that they have done or can do.  Like a standing portfolio.  Brilliant!  This is excellent advertising for large items that they can't realistically bring with them, but could design for custom orders. 

The next photos are of their displays that were made by Matt made by using a plasma cutter and sheet metal.  Now these are equipment and materials not readily available to all of us.  But, it shows to be creative with what you do have access to.

 Not only do you need to think of design, but storage and usability.  The necklace plates on this stand detach for storage.  This is also solidly built with hooks on the table.  This display is great because:

1. the hooks keep the display stable (customers bumping the table, wind, etc)
2. brings your product up to eye level (which necklaces are you going to see first?  The ones on the table or the ones in front of your face?)
3. visually appealing and a draw from a distance.  it's memorable.

This next photo (sorry about the glare) makes the name memorable.  Remember, Matt has the tools and the capability to make this out of metal.  A well placed and professional sign will also be memorable to customers who purchase from you.

On this stand (which also tears down into pieces for storage) the have added color to their display.  This is also visually appealing.

When I met Matt & Jen, they had only been open for business for a couple of hours and had already gotten a good start on sales.  The amount of people in and out of their booth today was good to see.

Great job Jezroc Jewelry.  The card that Matt gave me has his metal works website.  You can see some of the metal work and jewelry through this site http://www.jezrocmetalworks.com/.

Another great display that I saw today was at Renee Oberlin's booth Twin Designs, Inc.  She has jeweled and beaded stainless steel serving pieces, etc.  Her display caught my attention because of the pure volume of product that she brought.  She was ready to sell.  Again, this was another vendor that, because of her display and her beautiful product, was very busy.  It took me a little bit to get the photo because of all the traffic she had. 

She made use of vertical space.  Not only on her shelves but on the wire grate (far right of photo).  She has pegs that work perfectly for her product.  The dark background of her display helps to make the color of her work really "POP". 

I didn't get a lot of time to talk to Renee due to the amount of people shopping her booth.  I trust she was having a good day today.  Check out her site at http://www.twindesignsinc.com/.

There were other booths that caught my eye for one reason or another but I think these two had some really good ideas to display their work.  I did see a lot of "don't"s today also.  That is for another post.