Buying a Craft Show Tent

The tent is the first important item you are buying for your craft show business. The right tent makes all the difference.

We made our first mistake when we looked all over the place for an 8x8 tent and found ONLY one. The wrong one! We found this one on sale for $80.00. It was in our price range and we thought we had it made. Unfortunately, the tent has slanted legs instead 
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DIY Tent Weights

We recently purchase a new event tent for this year out at Portland Saturday Market. We were pricing out weights to purchase for our new Event Tent
and found that they are very expensive. Each tent leg is required to have 20 pounds to help stabilize the tent. We found a few weights that we liked but they were outside of our budget. We took

Craft Show Checklist

So you decided to do a craft show. You applied, got accepted and paid for your space... Now What???

What do you need to setup your space to make sells. This is a list of some of the things we take.

I've listed things you may need for either an Indoor or Outdoor Show.
 
Tent - straight legs, avoid slanted leg tents, white top is the best
Tent sides / walls
Weights 20 pounds each leg - can make these with milk jugs and sand $20.
Curtains or fabric to display area
Lights - clip-on is the best 10" Work Lamp are the best for lg light area
Light Bulbs 150 - 200 watt best light Sunlight or Clear bulbs
Extension cords 16 gauge or better
Surge Protectors 16 gauge or better
Long 3 prong electrical plug (5- 10 feet long) 16 gauge or better
4' or 5' tables
Table Cloths
Cart / utility / Flat beds - to transport everything
Rope
Bungee cords
Company Banner - Company name sign w/wo URL
Displays to show off your products. Tier your products on different levels
Plastic Storage Boxes with locking lids
Seat Cushion - saves on the bottom/back ache
Chair - folding and comfortable
Small step ladder - if dealing with tents or displays to hang items
Customer price list / inventory to see what you sold at the end of the day.
Product tags - Either for tagging prices individually or in groups (baskets)
Product description pages- explain your art process or what it does
Business Cards
Money box or waist pouch
Money - to make change 
The square or paypal reader to accept credit cards via cellphone
Bags for the customers
Heaters - propane, auto shutoff - outdoor shows
Heat lamps and bulbs - if heaters are not allowed
Electric Blanket is another idea to keep warm
Food / Water - craft show food can get expensive.
Lunch tote to hold food and water - craft show food can get expensive.
Therm-us for hot drinks


Clothes to Wear
Extra set of clothes to leave in car
Socks - extra set
Mittens / gloves
Sunscreen for sunny days
Sunglasses

Tips to stay warm
Body Oil helps insulate your body for cold days before dressing 
Shoes with thick rubber soles. keeps cold from the body and cushions the floor


I have a few previous post on craft shows. Lighting, carts, weights and our experience.
 
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Making Inexpensive Tent Weights

Milk jug bungee corded to the tent leg.

I hear you asking yourself if tent weights are necessary!  I asked myself the same thing. Let me ask you this. Are you doing a show outside? If yes, then yes you need weights. I have seen a tent flip over. The breeze caught the tent just right and flipped it. If you would like to keep your tent grounded, over your head and not blowing down the isle then you need weights on each leg. Not to worry thou, weights don't need to be expensive.

Here is an inexpensive idea how to build your own weights.

We use 4 milk jugs (one for each leg) filled with sand as tent weights. We purchased the sand at the locale hardware store. We were able to buy two 60 pound bags for $10. Some vendors use bleach jugs filled with water. We choose sand because we didn't want to be hauling water around. We had concerns about obtaining water at outdoor shows. The facility may not offer water stations or faucets. Tie rope around the handle and up around the top rail of the tent just under the canvas top. Then bungee cord the milk jug to the leg to keep it in place. We spray painted ours blue but the paint seems to flake off. I would have preferred to leave them clear or white.

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Shining the Light on your Products - Tent Lighting

I certainly didn't think that lighting would be a big deal. I thought a lamp is a lamp is a lamp. Just grab a lamp not in use and we would have plenty of light in the tent. This is sadly not the case.

When it comes to lighting your craft tent it is just as important as buying the proper tent. The lighting illuminates your products and provides a welcoming glow to your tent. It welcomes the customers in to stop and look at your products. After all no one wants to enter a dark cave. Lesson learned the hard way.

If you want to get an idea of what type of lighting you should use, I suggest going to a craft show / farmers market near you and check out the vendors tents. You may also take note of how they display there products for ideas on how to display yours.

These are the lamps we noticed a lot of vendors using in our area. They are aluminum work clamp on lamps. The 10" lamp can handle up to a 300 watt bulb. It also throws 30% more light out in to a bigger area then the 8.5" work lamp. I haven't noticed the aluminum getting hot enough to burn any thing but as always use with caution. Most of the vendors we have seen use them by hanging them from the tent top, sides or center and focus them outward on to the products. 

10" Work Lamp

The 8.5" work clamp lamp can hold up to a 150 watt bulb.

8.5" Work Lamp

We are trying to keep the cost down so we used old clip on lamps that we had left over from my mothers shop. We have a few of the 8.5" aluminum clamp lamps and a couple of small desk clip-on lamps. The 8.5' lamps will be used to highlight our products on the tables and hanging from the walls. The desk top lamps will be used to highlight our company name tent banner on the back wall. They can't handle more then 70 watts but that should be enough to spot light the banner. All we needed to do is buy bulbs for them. The brighter the better. We bought two 150 clear watt and one clear 200 watt bulb for the 10" and 8.5" lamps and two 70 watt for the desk lamps. Lots of Light...

When it comes to bulbs, there are so many choices out there. There is soft light, warm light, clear, vivid light. Then there is halogen, florescent or led lights. Not to mention, there is single spot lamps versus track lighting. Some bulbs simulate a higher wattage verses the illumination. There is a lot to choose from. Now that the bulb/lighting regulations have changed I would ask the store what would be best for your situation.

We will eventually upgrade to the simulated 1200 watt to be used in the aluminum work lamps with the lower (70watt) actual watt usage. These bulbs can be pricy but they last a little longer. When we have enough money we will buy a few more aluminum 10" clamp lamps from Lowes or Walmart. They run around $10-$15 each.

***Special notation*** If you are doing craft shows in the cold and raining months you can replace one of the light bulbs with a heat bulb. This will help keep you and your tent warm.

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Making My Company Banner

Alphabet Soup!

 I started working the Portland Saturday Market recently. My mother and I have been trying to make due or do things with the least amount of expense. We are working on getting our displays and tent displays together. We decided to make our own banner by embroidering each letter and sewing it to canvas. We thought this would be the cheapest way for us to get a company name banner. We have the thread and we have the canvas all we need to do is the work.

Each Letter Stitched Out.

I sat down one night and started playing with Fonts and seeing which ones I would want to use for my banner. I started making my letters one by one. Each letter would have to be stitched out on the embroidery machine one at a time. Each letter took anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to embroidery. It took me 4 days to complete the embroidery . Because I stitched them out with washable stabilizer I needed to soak the letters for 24 hours, changing the water every few hours during the day and then continued soaking the remainder of the night. After soaking I cut the fabric from around each letter.

Plain Black Background Fabric

Once I completed the letters I moved on to getting the background fabric finished. I hemmed the sides and made drawstring facings in the top and bottom to run rope through the banner so I could hang it up in the tent. 

After I finished the background piece of the banner I laid out the letters for spacing and placing. Once that is complete I attached the letters to the background fabric. We used glue to attached the letters. Gluing the letters on was easier then sewing them on.

Letters are glued on and drying

This is the completed banner displaying the company name.

Hanging in the tent

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Our First Craft Tent Setup

 

This was a test run of the craft show setup. We setup the tent in the front yard.

If you have never done a craft show whether inside or outside I would suggest doing a test setup the week before. This will help you decide what you may need and the best way to display your products. This will help on the day of the show by saving time on setting up your area. It also keeps the pressure down so you are not wondering around trying to figure things out at the last minute before the doors open for business.

  

  We are trying to make due on a very limited budget. We are using what we have around the house or making items as cheap as possible.

We bought our 8 x 8 tent. Unfortunately, we bought the wrong type of tent. We bought a tent used more for family recreation. We should have bought one for the serious craft vendor.

We made our weights from milk jugs.

We used clip on lamps that were laying around the house.

The navy blue back curtain that we are using was once used as dressing room wall at my moms store. We still had a few panels left. All we had to due is hem them for the tent. The navy blue back wall gives the tent some depth which we needed to make the tent look larger.

We setup our temporary cardboard displays for the tables to create a second viewing level.

The table cloths are large pieces of black fabric that we hemmed. 

We used our new cart for the second table. We arranged the lights to focus on the tables.

After we got the tent setup with the tables we wanted to figure out how we wanted to display our products. 

With this setup we hung the pillows from the top of the tent and displayed a few on the cart table on the right. The front table is displaying the iPad, messenger bag and pet supplies.

This tent setup has come a long way from the first time we sold at PSM. The first setup was the tent and one table with pillows sitting all over it at the same viewing level. We didn't have lights, so we were sitting in a darken cave on a rainy day. No one took notice of us. 

We are still making improvements to our tent and displays to make it more inviting to entice the public to stop and look at our products. 

One thing to remember when doing a show, you need to find things that break down (lay flat) and are easy to transport. 

The other thing to keep in mind is to make your tent a welcoming place. You want the customer to feel welcome to come and look at your wares.

 

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