Chapter Nine

BUILDING A CART

If you like, you could always consider foregoing a traditional booth and create a cart. This is especially good if you have small items, or your larger booth has smaller products you can also sell in a satellite location. The biggest advantage to a cart is not only the smaller booth fees, but you are mobile and can rationalize moving if your first location isn’t working for you. Carts can pepper a Faire and have the advantage of being out in front of your customers and not tucked in a corner somewhere with little hope of moving. Some carts are even mobile enough to move constantly, always going where the people are.

This is very nice if you wish to park yourself at the exit when the Faire is ending, or near the stage when a big scheduled event is imminent. Carts can come in all sizes and even include places for you to sit within them. The following sketches* will give you some ideas of what a cart might be, and maybe inspire you to dream up something unique to you and your products.

* Work in progress, sketches coming.

FABRIC TOURNAMENT BANNERS AS A MOTIF

Like the previous examples, this booth design uses rough poles as the basis of its construction and drapes banners and over-sized pennants as the roof, walls, and railing. This is a nice effect and works especially nicely when the booth is anywhere near the Horse Tournament area or stables.

FABRIC WALLS

Fabric Walls

 

This booth is constructed like the Twigs & Branches design but includes a patchwork peaked roof and back wall. This design also suggests the use of twigs and brambles as a method for displaying small hanging objects. The counter is sturdy and draped in a simple cloth. The counter could include a “lock box” that would allow you to keep valuables safe when you are away between event days.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BOOTH BUILDING EXAMPLES

The following are some illustrated example of how materials might be used to create your own Faire booth. These are all based on a 8 foot by 8 foot booth space and are only meant to suggest techniques you could use in designing and building your own unique booth. These are also far from the limits of what is possible, so feel free to play and come up with something that will set you and your wares apart from those around you, and yet fit within the overall theme of the event.

Twigs & Branches

This booth is constructed using only large branches, twigs, and poles. The booth is very open with only fabric for a roof and as a view block on the lower rail. Banners and flags decorate the booth as well as a string of colored rags tied along the front edge. This is the sort of booth a traveling crafts person would build and does not include a back space or place to lock away their products. This is a very portable design, but will require you to rope it together each time you do an event. I have seen crafts people arrive with nothing more then a pickup filled with poles and branches and miraculously erect a fantastic booth from scratch. I have to admit that I am not that brave, but I have seen it done to great effect.