Category Archives: Musings

Art Festival Booth Walls

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Northport Art in the Park. July 2008. Mary Ahern the artist.

Northport Art in the Park. My first art festival in July 2008. Notice there are no walls to hang Art!

In June 2004 when I did my first outdoor Art Festival after a 30 year gap since my debut at the Floral Park Art League shows, I bought a tent and some shoji screens to hang my work. What was I thinking?

I wanted the booth to look classy so I didn’t want to use metal frames that I’d seen at other shows so I figured that I’d hang my paintings on the screens and it would give an upscale look. Wrong!

The first gust of breeze at the show in Northport harbor blew everything down. I resorted to folding the screen around one of the legs of the booth with bungee cords and hanging a few pieces on them. The wind was unrelenting but I sold $150 that day and I was hooked again.

Westhampton Beach Art Festival, August 2004 with the artist, Mary Ahern

Westhampton Beach Art Festival, August 2004. New booth with Flourish mesh panels.

I quickly rallied for my next show two months later, which was the Westhampton Beach Art Festival in August of 2004. By this time we had gone to other shows to scout out booth strategies and decided on the mesh panels made by Flourish. Since we had severe transportation space restrictions at the time, we needed to conserve space in our SUV and these panels did that and more.

I really like the white walls. It is a nice sleek modern look. The panels are easy to put up and take down. The booth is cooler in the summer since the breeze can go through the mesh. I can endlessly fidget with my arrangements since the hooks I use are simple to reposition. The panels roll up and fit in a bag which makes for very easy transporting. They are amazingly strong and I’ve been known to hang a lot of very heavy paintings with glass on them.

CT Flower & Garden Show in February 2007. Indoor booth frame with mesh panels by Flourish.

CT Flower & Garden Show in February 2007. Indoor booth frame with mesh panels by Flourish.

We’ve used the same panels on our outdoor EZ-Up booth and also on our indoor booth frame which we got from Flourish. The choice of booth sidewalls was one of our better equipment decisions.

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Art Festival Folding Desks

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2005-01-Hicks Nursery Winterfest with the artist, Mary Ahern

Hicks Nursery Winterfest January 2005. Flimsy tables didn’t last long.

Finding the right furniture for your Festival Show booth is not an easy task and for us it took quite a few twists and turns. Granted the work I’ve been showing over the last four years has also taking dramatic zigs and zags, I spent more money, time and energy trying to get my sales desk right.

In 2004 when I started doing Art Show and Festivals, I bought some extremely cheap folding tables for $11 each. They had aluminum legs and an almost cardboard top but they served the purpose for a few shows. I put some tablecloths over the top of them and they seemed to work fine. I was even able to store inventory underneath. Then the moisture got into them and the tops warped too much to be useable.

I replaced them with foldable molded plastic tables which have adjustable legs for height variations. They were much heavier and could store less underneath but they were much more durable. In fact, I still have them and use them once in awhile with tablecloths when I can display more outside the booth.

2007-02 CT Flower & Garden Show with the artist, Mary Ahern.

Desk set up at the Connecticut Flower and Garden show in February 2007

 

In 2005 I thought I found the perfect solution. On the internet

2008 Connecticut Flower and Garden Show with the artist, Mary Ahern

February 2008 Connecticut Flower and Garden Show with the ProPanels desk

I found a folding crafting desk with flip up sides and drawers in the center to hold all my office material like stapler, tape, pens, sales forms, my credit card reader, lunch, etc. Well, after two shows the flakeboard cracked and fell apart from the back and forth transportation in the trailer. The look of the desk was fantastic but the materials weren’t made for the rigors of road travel. Even collapsed into the size of a night table, the desk took too much room in our trailer so we discarded it. Money down the drain.

We bought a pedestal desk from Pro Panels. Lightweight enough, fully collapsible and it has two shelves inside. http://propanels.com

I created a curtain with some fabric to put on the open back of the desk to hide my paraphernalia. At the last show I didn’t realize until it was too late that people were just reaching into my desk to steal my shopping bags because they didn’t want to carry their literature even though some huge company was handing out free literature bags at the entrance to the show. Every single show is a learning experience. I guess that every day of life is too.

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