Setting up a booth

There is a certain procedure I follow when setting up my booth at a quilt show. The first step is to get every thing out of the van. I had planed to get in line for International Quilt Festival-Chicago and sit in line until noon. I told my "crew" not to arrive before then.

I was able to drive to my booth when I arrived at 8:15 am.

Boy was I surprised!!! After you get everything out of the van you go park it so no one blocks you in.

The next step it to rough in the booth. Which means you need to see where you are going to put the tables, and racks. At every show you get a different location. It seems I can never use the same set up. I usually draw up a map before I get there but it never works out.

...sigh...maybe I should give up drawing a map...

Because my crew was not going to show up until noon I had a hard time getting everything set up. A nice young man named Scott, who was on the decorating team for the convention center, helped me hang the drapes. You can see in the above picture just above the white drapes, I had a wide support beam in my booth. Although the show is draped in white you are not allowed to pin things to their drapes. So I had to replace quite a lot of drapes.

The next thing I do is hang up the samples. I usually do that before I put the tablecloths on. I stand on the tables to reach the top poles, 8' off the ground, which is where I hang my samples. That way I am not getting dirty foot prints on my tablecloths.

My crew arrived after I got the samples up. They were anxious to helped me so we draped the tables before I took a picture of the booth with out the table cloths.

Here is the finished booth from one side and the other.

It was a successful show for me. I hope you had a chance to visit the Rust-Tex booth at International Quilt Festival-Chicago.