Winter? Bring it on!
Getting in the spirit of the season . . .
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When the water is still on this small lake in the Adirondacks, the mountain and its mirror-image reflection form a wine bottle. Perfection.
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Don't forget to spring forward this weekend!
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Wishing you the simple pleasures this season.
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It's that time of the year . . . for all you graduates out there.
]]>THINGS I DID RIGHT
1. Ordering the space. If you don’t already have a pre-constructed booth, order the expensive hard-walled package. We were able to walk in, unpack our disposable paint supplies, and start painting. After a few hours we had a blank, colorful canvas ready to go.
2. Checklists! Make checklists as if your life depended on it. I made checklists for all the show deadlines (shipping to Javits for example), for every item I needed in the booth, supplies I needed to ship or carry in my suitcase, printed materials, etc.
3. Plan the booth. Careful product display planning and good booth design is essential. If you have a small-enough enterprise (like me), you can creatively store your packing crates or boxes in your booth, thereby eliminating hours of waiting time at the end of the show. We were able to pack up the booth immediately after the show ended and catch a train in Grand Central about two hours later.
3. Rely on family and friends. We saved money both by parking our car at a friend’s house in Connecticut and by staying with my cousin right in the city. It wasn’t Waldorf-Astoria-luxurious, but it was a lot more fun and much less expensive than a hotel. Obviously not an option for everyone (and probably not for me if I exhibit again soon!) but it's worth mentioning.
4. Have a great booth buddy. I was lucky enough to have a handy helper who could lift heavy objects and hang things with competence, but he also helped man the booth during the day so that I could take quick breaks to walk parts of the show, eat my lunch, and run to the bathroom.
5. Pack lunch. Javits food is pricey, and we were able to save a little money by shopping at our neighborhood bodega and bringing our own snacks, drinks, and lunch every day.
THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
1. Look into other shipping options. This is a big expense.
2. Splurge for electricity (yes, they charge for that too!) and bring some clip on lights. It wasn’t a deal-breaker but the brighter your booth is, the better it looks.
3. Think of some fantastically original give-away for visitors (and passersby) to take with them to try to generate more excitement, and more traffic.
Here's the booth plan:
And the booth in real life.
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Just got back from the NY NOW wholesale gift show at Javits in New York. It was a truly rewarding experience - so many nice people, so much positive feedback. Plus a little snow and a little slush. As one of 2,800 exhibitors, I felt at once tiny and significant, a small but important piece of a very large, vibrant, and sprawling puzzle. I often have this feeling in New York - a center-of-the-universe-type feeling, like you're in the right place, and the possibilities are endless. Let's hope so! After this show, mollyOcards will be found in stores dotted around the country, and even a few in Canada. Thank you to all who stopped by the booth to look, to chat, and to place orders - it was a pleasure!
]]>We are on our way soon to New York for the NY NOW gift show, a behemoth of a wholesale market. We're heading down to set up our booth on January 30th, and the show starts on February 1st, Superbowl Sunday (a completely unrelated event.) Wish us luck, or come see us in Booth #7144 if you're there...we'll send pictures!
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