Booth setup tips/ideas

[TootysMom]

I'm doing my first wedding expo at the end of the month and was wondering if any of you that have done this before have any tips or ideas for setting up the booth. The space I have will be 8x8 and they will provide a table w/linen and an electrical outlet.

Thanks for your help!
Britney

[TootysMom]

No one has any experience with this?

[J Eddington]

Dump the table. Set the boot up with hard walls and place BIG (24x20 or larger) photos on them. You want to attract people and stand out in a nice way. Have a place for people to sit. Have LOTS of marketing material. Do a drawing for something in order to get names and contact information. I am hunting for photos from the last booth I had will post them if I can find them.

[TootysMom]

Thanks Janice, you're awesome! I can't wait to see the photos from your last booth :)

[S-Man]

Let us know how the show goes, and the results from it.

[ronocnikral]

i'll try and find a picture as well. we have 18" tables along the back of our booth where we place some albums. I also built a structure with lights (for under $200) in which we have a 4'x5' picture, 2-20"x30" canvases and another bigger canvas.

i'm skeptical about the drawing. we've never booked a single wedding off of our drawing. it's always been if you win, you have to book us to get it - and no bride has ever gone for that. we then end up with way too many leads, 99.5% being poor quality. The trick then becomes, finding the quality leads and that is the rub. Many days spent by my wife calling and emailing people eventually has the quality leads fall out. a few thoughts on based our experiences at the show we do (largest in NA) and our pricepoint (we gross well north of $2500 per wedding):

1) remember, the purpose of a bridal show for a bride is to gather information from potential vendors. we have basic pricing information on our handout. our goal is to get this information to as many people as possible in the hopes that they contact us.

2) the purpose of a bridal show for a vendor is to generate quality leads. we do this in predominately one way, setting up consultations at the show.

3) a drawing will predominately generate leads of a poorer quality which is a lot of work to turn out bookings from. Some fill out only b/c they are interested in winning something (99.5% of the people) and the rest b/c they are genuinely interested. In fact, you don't even need to tell people what the drawing is for, and they will still signup. In the future, only people who are genuinely interested we will have signup. We will then ask if they would like to schedule a consult. If not, we will ask if we should call them in a week to see how they are doing in terms of finding a photographer. then they get asked to signup if they would like to be contacted in the future by email. if the answer to our first two questions are no, there is low interest and/or they aren't serious about booking a photographer at the time. which is fine. if they want to be contacted by email in the future we can do that. if they just want our handout, that is what it is for and we want them to have it. we will not book everyone who walks through the door, nor do we want to.

hope this helps.

[abril1127]

Here is my bridal show journey from last year. There is a lot of good stuff in this 2 page post!
http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...idal-fair.html

[TootysMom]

Thanks so much everyone for your input. April, your setup was really nice - thank you so much for sending that thread, it was really helpful!

I've had second thoughts about doing this expo - I'm thinking I need to wait until I have some more weddings under my belt so I have more examples to show brides.

[SCone]

The expo experience will be good for you.... and you have plenty of examples to showoff your work. If you do a give-away of some type, include an option that gives everyone that signs up at the show a discount or a free extra even if they book their wedding six months from now. Whether the couple goes with you on-the-spot or not, it's still a win for you. We have found that give-aways are good, but so many people will only want the freebie. Make it to where anyone that will give their information wins.

[ronocnikral]

i think you should do it. this last show has been one of more successful ones.

here is an image of our booth. we have a mother and an actual bride help. i built this setup for about $200, including the lights. we rent the three tables and tablecloths each show.


IMG_0137

[Nena2007]

What a great idea, Ron! Coming from someone that has actually worked with you, I bet brides are much more comfortable in making you their choice! Neat!