Our First Builders Show

Well, we had one long weekend this past weekend. It all started on Thursday April 15 (yes tax day) when we loaded all our wares into our trailer and drove 50 miles to the Fairgrounds in the big city to our south – Spokane, WA.  Once we got there we had to jockey the truck and trailer around in a pretty tight spot that required a bit of trailer backing skill.  We got it done finally.  Then we reversed our loading process and pulled everything back off the trailer and got it piled up outside our booth.

Before going to the Fairgrounds we had spent about 30 minutes at home playing with a CAD program to figure out the best way to lay out our booth.  We got it all set up according to our plan and life was good.  We finished up early enough to get some errands run in the big city before the vendor party got underway.  We did some strolling around the venue to see what the other vendors were showing.  There was some very neat stuff there.  Well we went to the party and had a good time talking with some very nice folks and finally decided it was time to go home and get some sleep before the big show began.

Friday morning rolled around and we arrived for our first day at a real builders show.  Things started out pretty slow and didn’t get much better for the entire day.  We found out that there had been a home & garden show the previous weekend and people were kinda burned out on shows.  So we hung in there and came back on Saturday morning for our 10 hours in the booth…..

One thing we did learn Friday (and luckily had time to fix) was that our booth was not really setup well.  We had it set up so that people had to come to the back of the booth to get brochures and business cards and look through the photo book.  Part way through the day we rearranged our booth and things were much better.  On Saturday and Sunday the new booth setup made a difference. It was a very busy day with lots of people coming in to talk with us about their plans for their homes.  It was a great time to chat with people.  We had another great addition on Saturday and Sunday, one of our 12 year old twin daughters spent the two days with us at the show.  When things were a little slow we had time to chat and play games.

Another great thing about having her with us was that she laid out our free pens very professionally – especially considering that we just put them in a pile.

Sunday was another VERY slow and boring day.  We had a few people that were just looking but that was it.  All our ‘business’ was done Saturday.  We blame the weather. It was sunny and 76 degrees outside.  People didn’t want to be cooped up inside at a show.  I don’t blame them at all – I would have loved to have been outside myself.  Oh well…..

All in all it was a pretty good experience.  We met some very nice people, learned a little more about how to set up a booth more efficiently for customer access and networked with some nice business people.  Nancy had a great time chatting with other scrollers when they came through the booth and saw the scroll saw work that she does.  I talked with several veterans and we had some nice chats.  I also got a chance to talk with many woodworkers and we exchanged good ideas and war stories.

We are looking forward to next year!