How to do a trade fair

We've been discussing in a previous post how unorganized and unprofessional (as well as how unfriendly) Etsy's craft show booths are. Here are a few pics of proof:




Thats a small sampling from a search on Flickr.

The sad part is, they don't look like a 60-person 27-million dollar e-commerce site with a million members and hundreds of thousands of online shops. They look like an Art Therapy outreach who is showing off what their geriatric, mentally handicapped or perhaps low income inner city kids are doing. If I saw this booth at the local street fair I would wander right by. Most of the shots show so little of what Etsy is, bascially seeming to be just a few pieces of whatever they felt like hauling along. All that's missing is a plate for donations.

What's sadder is some the street team are scads more saavy.



Do you see a differnce? (did you see the WWSD wheel?)

Branding, polish, and NOT looking like a gypsy caravan. The street fairs went so far as to make banner that LOOK like the sites logo. I think the people in Brooklyn have forgotten they HAVE a logo. They instead keep tossing out dodgy banners with appliqué with themes that have NOTHING to do with etsy, and most of all they don't look professional. What have we been asking for since post #1? Professionalism.

Now I've seen a great many street/artisan/craft fairs in my time. Here's what Etsy should do: Stop making heir staff make stuff, and instead invest say a little of that 27MIL and get a proper trade/craft show kit.

Logo. They have one, they need to use it. A white EZUp is easy, but you hang a Etsy color LOGO banner under the header and it's done, but for the extra mile get someone to screen print the Etsy logo on the EZUp and it would soar higher to respectablility. If they went crazy with the image improvement they could get custom made tent with the etsy colors and logo and really stand out and look like an honest to god Internet sensation. Next, ditch the curtains from Grandma and instead opt for nice branded crisp table cloths. Have a couple pop up trade show billboards to the sides or back with perhaps a nicely organized mosisc dozens of typical Etsy items printed on them in a nice clean grid, and have some more on possibly some vertical banners out front. Now, on those clean branded tables have Etsy business cards with some fact and figures on the back (how many shops, ho wmuch listings and the like are), a couple tv's play some videos of Etsians raving about how they have quit their day jobs or found their niche.

Now that's a trade/craft show booth that will be crowed with people and not embarass the ones already listing with you. How about it Etsy, how about growing up and looking like it?