What would MacGyver do?
16th January, 09
I’ve been doing shows for a few years now. Which means that I’ve ironed out most of the wrinkles when it comes to designing my booth display. It’s a pretty good system. It’s lightweight, fits in our little car, collapsible, configurable and pink. All the important components for a functional booth.
Doing a new show always seems to throw a wrench into my plans. At all the other shows we do, we just waltz into a show and all the booth spaces are separated by white drapes. We hang up our 8 foot long fabric display panels over the drapes and away we go! On no not this time. Unlike all the other shows I’ve done, the CGTA Gift Show doesn’t provide exhibitors with a “Pipe and drape” system at the booth. Meaning all booth spaces are just a chalk outline on the floor and it is up to us to build our own walls. With just a chalk outline on the floor there’s nothing separating us from our neighbours. It’s up to us to build a free standing 10ft x 10ft x 8ft tall hard-wall structure. Are you kidding me?!
I flipped through the show flyer and saw that they were renting out prefab walls for the show. For hundreds of dollars (about the same cost as exhibiting at the show itself), I can rent a free standing monstrosity for 5 days. It looked quite generic and I really wanted something more Smitteny Kitteny. Plus do I want to be pay and rent walls every time we do this show? I passed on the offer.
But now with a week to go (and no solution), I’m banging my head against the not-yet-built walls and have started to second guess myself. Should I have just sucked it up and paid for the luxury of not having to worry?
Now I didn’t take wood-shop in high school but I think myself pretty handy. I’ve designed and built all the other components of my booth, can put together Ikea furniture with my eyes closed, hooked up our entertainment unit so that everything is accessible from one remote and have watched numerous episodes of MacGyver. But build a free standing 10ft x 10ft x 8ft tall hard-wall structure?! What was I thinking??
No no the boy is no help. He’s many wonderful things but a handy man he is not. Sometimes I get jealous of exhibitors who, with a little pouting, can get her man to build them a beautiful booth. I tried pouting at the boy, it results in more pouting from his end. He jokes and says I wouldn’t lend him my power tools anyway.
I decided to take a friend’s advice out of desperation last week. I put on some makeup, dressed in cute garb (in -20 weather) and teeter tottered into Home Depot in hopes of wrangling some help with the matter. Yeah it felt a little dirty but I was real desperate for a solution (finger wag from MacGyver). “Excuse me mister handy man, I’ve got a craft show coming up and need to build a big ol’ booth for my itsy bitsy pieces of jewelry. Can you help me?” All I got out of it was some bad suggestions like “Why not use 4 ft x 8 ft sheets of plywood miss? You can paint it real pur-ty like yourself.” Yeah like I didn’t think of that already you goofball, you try transporting 8 foot sheets of plywood in a Honda Fit. “Don’t you have a boyfriend who can help you? ‘cos if not then…” Listen mister build me the booth and THEN we’ll talk. Serves me right for trying to play helpless I guess.
Categories: Shows and Events.
Tags: booth, CGTA Gift Show.
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