The show went reasonably well, but perhaps not as well as it should have.

Let’s start with the bad things:

I hadn’t expected the first day to be so busy and despite all the months of preparation beforehand, I was ill-prepared. I had patterns that still hadn’t been packaged for hanging on the display unit, I had other things that hadn’t gone up on the display and I was flustering about on the first morning before Georgia (Tim’s mum) came in to help that morning. By the end of the second day we had shuffled some products around a bit and I felt that I was starting to improve preparation-wise. By the third day it seemed that everything was under control. I thought I would only need Tim’s mum for the first day and the Saturday and Sunday but she ended up coming to help the fully day for each day of the show. I couldn’t have done it without her – thanks Georgia! (And by the final day of the show Georgia had almost completely lost her voice and she still came in to help – what a trooper!)

Unfortunately the guy at Reed Exhibitions who signed me up for the show put me on a stand which was in a completely different building to that of the main building, where most of the potential customers were. I should have cottoned onto this when I first signed up but I just wanted to get into the show and to be honest I didn’t even understand the concept that there was a second building. When I went there as an observer last year there was just one building with several levels and I thought that I was on one of those levels in that building. Throughout the show, there were announcements over the pa system that a second building existed but unfortunately these announcements seemed to dissipate as the show went on. Sunday was the day that I was expecting to be our biggest day and it was actually our worst – we had approximately 75% less customers on Sunday than we did on Saturday. There was only one announcement about the second building that I heard on Sunday.

Also, I wasn’t happy about these little tid bits:

• When I arrived on set up day on Tuesday the 19th I discovered that they had spelt the name of my company incorrectly on the sign. They had spelt it Tall Poppy Craft Productcts. Idiots! By the next morning it had been corrected but they’d used upper case instead of lower case which didn’t match the rest of the text. Ugggh!
• After the hustle and bustle of the first day it came to my attention that in fact the whole floor plan that I was provided with had been completely changed around. My stand was supposed to be directly opposite the Lincraft stand. But instead I ended up being directly opposite the ‘Create, Make and Decorate stage’. Granted, this gave us something to look at on Sunday when we were bored out of our mind but it also gave potential customers something to look at so they ended up walking straight past my stand – sometimes without evening seeing it at all.
• We were near the ‘Living Creatively’ stand which was an unmanned stand and was just a series of 3 or 4 plasma TVs with a repeating DVD and soundtrack. The soundtrack consisted of 3 songs which were played over and over again for the 7 hours of each day of the show. It drove me insane.
• On Sunday (the final day of the show) the Cake Decorators Guild of NSW used the stage to present their cake decorating awards. Unfortunately for us the crowd of Guild members and their friends and family gathered around the stage and in front of the stand, completely blocking it off from anyone who wanted to come past. The presentation went on for about an hour – we made no further sales after 3.54pm that afternoon because of the cake decorators. Thanks for the consideration folks!
• Some people mentioned that the advertising for the show had been pretty poor this year. One lady who came to my stand said that the only reason she found out about the show was through being a member of our mailing list.

I have since found out that Reed Exhibitions had recently sold the show to Kerri-Anne Kennerley’s company, Living Creatively. I think the care factor slipped because this was the last show that they would be hosting so they had no further responsibility for the show. I sent them a letter outlining my feedback so we’ll see if I even get a response.

When all is said and done at the end of it I came out about $2,000 ahead. At least I didn’t lose money but $2,000 is not much when you consider the amount of money paid for the stand itself, the investment in all the display units and the point of sale software and all the months of preparation and the 14 hour days that I had while the show was on. Had I been in the first building I think I would have come out at least $6,000 ahead. What a bummer!

Now for the good things:

• I made $2,000 profit
• I didn’t lose money
• I got exposure for the business
• Quite a few members of the mailing list came out to use their early bird special
• I met one or two loyal customers and one or two crafty friends who took the time out to come and say hello – in particular, Bianca of Sadie & Lace – thanks Bianca! Bianca and I were swap partners for a craft swap on craftster about 5 or 6 years ago. She made me a lovely triple knitted scarf. I couldn’t believe it when Bianca came up and introduced herself – in fact, I think I blushed and it made my day!
• A lot of people took slips of paper with the business address and phone number on it
• A few of the other exhibitors interested in purchasing goods for their stores
• I know more about craft shows than I did before
• I know there is no need to prepare as much stock for next time (IF there is a next time)
• I have all the display units already for the next time (IF there is a next time)
• I know where I DON’T want to be for next time (IF there is a next time)