suggestions on walls for craft stall

[Dave Cohen]

In november I'm going to be participating in my first crafts show in woodworking.

Some of what I make are custom, splined picture frames with photographs premounted etc. for sale, so I need to have some walls to hang them from.

Has anyone built portable walls/dividers for craft shows? If so do you have pics and/or descriptions of what you built or any good suggestions?

Thanks in advance

[Nancy Laird]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=48834&thumb=1&d=1161477659 (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=48834&d=1161477659)

Dave - here's a picture of my booth as taken about two years ago - the "walls" were built by hubby - they are 3' x 6' panels of peg board, painted almond, then framed with 1x pine stained dark. Each corner has 3 pair of hinges holding it together and a brace across the top to keep them square. They have levelers on the bottom, also. As you can see, I hang things directly from the pegboard, but I also put shelves on it and put things on the shelves--dual duty.

There's more in this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=44084

I will say that these are heavy, but since I do shows all over the place, they need to be heavy to stand up to the moving, etc. Hubby moves them with a hand truck and it's a two-person job to set them up--getting the hinges aligned, etc.

Works for us.

[Jamie Buxton]

I have an acquaintance who displays at crafts fairs with a booth design which might solve your problem. He used to have a booth with solid panels, but it was too difficult to transport. He built himself a booth whose walls have vertical poles every ten inches or so. Horizontally, there are ropes every ten inches or so. At the top and the bottom, there's are horizontal boards with holes that the vertical poles fit into. Remove the top and bottom boards, and the wall just rolls up for transport. He hangs lightweight stuff from the ropes, and heavier things directly on the vertical poles.

[AL Ursich]

Here is my setup.

AL

[Perry Holbrook]

A lot of folks use hollow core doors connected together with simply hinges so they will fold slighty and be free standing. You can stack them on a dolly for easy move-in. If you paint them use a color that will contrast nicely with your work keeping in mind you will probably need to touch up the paint after a few shows.

Keep in mind that your display needs to match the quality and style of your products and that a well lighted booth is absolutely a must if you are really interested in getting people to stop and take a look at your business.

Perry

[Dave Cohen]

Thanks for the suggestions....they do have electricity...any siggestions on lighting ?

[Perry Holbrook]

If you have a booth with pipe and drape, you need to mount the lights from the top bars. These are usually some type of track lights that be straped to the bars. The ones that use the small halogen lamps look the best. If you are just out in the open the lights need to be mounted on the display. These could be some type of clamp-on task lighting.

A booth needs about 1000 watts to really look good.

Here is a picture of my booth 2 years ago, at the time it had 500 watts of halogens on that display. Since then I have doubled it to 1000.

Perry

[Dave Cohen]

very nice looking booth...