I've spent the last month doing some Surtex planning and getting a to-do list together. I've been scouring the web seeing what other artists have done with their trade show booth. I've found some great references here (includes great tips too!), here, here, here, here,here, here and here. I have a 10x10 corner booth that will be on the top floor. I tried to search for the person who had my booth last year but the layout seems to be different so I couldn't find them. I did find that Carol Eldridge had a corner booth once and this is what she did.

My main focus for Surtex is presentation. What am I going to show and how am I going to display it all. I'm still thinking about all this. I know I don't want to spend a lot of money because I don't think I would use any or much of it again. I know I want some kind of dimension to it rather than just flat panels and am considering mocking up some products to display. We will be driving rather than flying to ensure that my display get's there in one piece. It will be a long drive from Nashville to Manhattan but being my first show, I don't want the added stress of worrying about having my display getting lost in the mail or the airport, plus I'd like the opportunity to bring some back up things like a printer, etc. in case I need to print something I forgot.

So...on my immediate to-do list:

1) Get business cars designed - My info on one side, my licensing manager on the flip side. I received some print samples from overnight prints and I really like the satin finish on them. Now, to decide if I should get the straight cut or rounded corners....

2) Start printing out my pages for my portfolio (which I will have set up for buyers to flip through at my booth) print out 5-10 pages a week. I kind of have everything in layers on one photoshop file so I need to get them all separated first - UGH!

3) Get my listing set up on the Surtex site which I have done. See it here

4) Start designing a mailer to send out, inviting people to my booth. We have about 325 companies on our list and we are in the process of getting contact info from their buyers.

5) Create 5 new designs a week

6) Keep researching artists that have been at past shows to see what did well for them or how they designed their booth

Labels: licensing, surtex, surtex planning