CHA in Chicago, Monday: Creating a booth












In Stacey's words...
"We got to the convention center and checked in a little after eight this morning (Monday). We then had to wait about 45 minutes at the loading dock for the forklift people to come move your stuff. We found out that unless you could carry the stuff to your booth in one trip, you had to use the unloaders. Some kind of Union rule. I'm glad we did though. There is no way we could have carried it all that way.

We got set up and left the convention center around 7:15, so that wasn't too bad. Jeremy is the one that did most of the hard work for the day, with all the floor/shelf building. He was constantly building something. However...it was so worth it! The booth looks really, really nice. Definitely not like a first timer! The quotes bubbles are so eye catching and fun to read, and the layouts definitely stand out. It would certainly make me want to come in and take a look to see what they were all about. We've got a few more quotes and arrows to add in the morning, but other than that we're ready to sell, sell, sell! We'll take more pictures in the morning after it's completely finished. I have to say, it looks even better than I thought it would.

We met Carolyn Wolff (she comments on Ali's blog) tonight at the hotel. She recognized Ali, and it was hilarious. She walked up and said "I knew that was you!" She owns a store in Toronto and said they couldn't wait to place their order tomorrow. Said she had even been teasing it on her blog. We sat outside and talked to her and her friend (whom she co-owns her store with) for about 30 minutes. It was so funny because there are so many similarities as far as "store stories" go.

From me:
I talked to Stacey and Allison Tuesday evening when the show was over for the day, and they were excited that some orders for our sketch books had already been placed. I was surprised as well, because I always spend the first two days just walking around and looking and collecting catalogs, then do order placing on the third day.

It looks like they did a great job on their booth design. They came up with all the ideas for the way things would be displayed, and for the hand-stitched quote bubbles and the arrows. I'm hoping to share more stories and more photos with you on Thursday.