You’re ready to make a craft show stand for your work. If you’re anything like me, you’ve Pinterest the crap out of DIY craft show stand ideas and have a plethora of ideas to tweak to suit your shop. It’s time to start building.
If not, here’s my Craft Show Stand Pinterest Board to help you get ideas 🙂
WHOA friend! Take a deep breath, put the hammer down and take a minute to go through this list of tips on making a craft show stand. Don’t be like me and just jump into it and end up with a beautiful but useless stand.
1. Make sure it fits in your car!!
When you first start planning your brilliant new amazing stand that is going to display all your products oh so wonderfully, be sure to measure the vehicle you plan on transporting it to and from events in.
The pin the inspired everything!
True story. I was surfing Pinterest for a genius idea for a craft show display. Something that would stand out from the crowd, look awesome, and be functional. I came across the pin to the left showing a shelf with a coat hanger pole. I thought it was brilliant! I could hang all my baby buntings, sleep sacs, and scarves from the pole and display some other items on the shelf below.
Being me, I called my crafty mom, Barb, and asked her what she thought. Together we brain stormed and the next thing I knew we were at our local Lowes shopping. We gathered a bunch of boards and all the hardware we’d need to put together this amazing stand.
Our beautiful wooden stand!
After several failed attempts, we managed to make this gorgeous stand to the right! We stained it and waited a week before setting it up in the front yard to practice. It was beautiful. Very eye catching and looked great.
And then we realized there was no way this new beautiful stand would fit in my tiny little car. Thank goodness my mom loves me and lets me borrow her 15-seater van for shows.
Moral of this story, be sure to craft your new stand to fit easily in your car. We learned our lesson and went back to the drawing board months later where we designed a new stand made out of PVC pipe. The PVC pipe easily breaks down into smaller pieces and can be stored in a bag which fits nicely in my tiny car.
2. Make sure it is easy for YOU to carry
Now you have this gorgeous stand that will fit in your car, but each piece is super heavy! Ahh! Not good!
This was the second problem with our first wooden stand. Each piece of wood was fairly heavy. Being two wimpy girls, this was not good. I ended up having to force a few of my younger brothers to tag along for set up and break down at shows.
The new PVC pipe stand not only breaks down easier its light. I now don’t have to ask anyone to help me carry the stand. I had some extra fabric laying around the house that wasn’t going to be used for anything, so I turned it into an easy to carry over the shoulder bag for the PVC pieces. Now traveling from my vehicle to my booth location is a breeze.
Unless you have a few burly men in your life who are gentlemen and are willing to always carry your stand in for set up and out during break down, I highly suggest you come up with a new plan for a light, easy to carry stand.
3. Make sure it can withstand clumsy people
My first show using the wooden stand I had not foreseen clumsy people. I’m fairly clumsy on a good day so why I forgot how rough and clumsy customers can be is a mystery.
Just imagine your gorgeous stand filled with product and then someone trips and uses your stand to steady themselves. Or even a small child in a stroller reaching out and grabbing your stand. Trust me, small children have grips like Hercules. Will your stand hold up against this treatment? What about someone flipping through clothes on hangers?
Once again, I had not thought about this with my wooden stand. Every time a customer approached my stand and started rifling through the baby buntings and scarves I had to hold onto the stand so I would not fall over. It was so wobbly I thought for sure it was going to die before the end of the day. Thank goodness it survived, but it was scary.
I haven’t tested out the PVC pipe stand yet, but I did make sure this stand has a rectangle base to give it a little more support. I am hoping it will hold up. I will let you know how it does once it’s put to the test.
*Update: I finally had a chance to use my PVC pipe stand and….. it held up to customer abuse! So happy with our decision to try out PVC pipe!
To help you find out if your stand can withstand the abuse of customers, have friends and family beat on your lovely stand. Ask them or if that doesn’t work, bribe them with cookies to pretend to be customers shopping for your particular products at a craft show. Be sure to rifle through everything so you can see how your products and stand do under the abuse.
4. Does it work indoors and out?
If you plan on vending at both indoor and outdoor events you’ll need to make sure your stand will work both inside and out. When I was building the wooden stand I knew my next show was an outdoor event. I was focused on building it to stand on an uneven surface and be subjected to the wind. This is one area the wooden stand excelled at. With some ropes attached and anchored in the ground, the wooden stand no longer wobbled when customers beat 
on it. It stood strong and proud.
When I took it to my next event, an indoor event, that was when I discovered how unsteady it really was. The stand was not designed to stand very well on flat ground.
To solved this problem, if you can set up your stand in your front, back, or side yard on slightly uneven ground do it. See what it takes to keep your stand standing. Then, if you have the space, find a spot in your house, preferably not on carpet, set up your stand. Once again test it for how sturdy it is. You want to make sure your stand is solid both indoor and out.
5. If it works outside make sure it can withstand wind with your products on it
Now that your stand actually stands outside you need to test how it fairs with your products on it. Again, the wooden stand failed. The wind constantly pushed all of my products to one side, putting too much weight on one side of the hanging bar which popped it off. The wind also knocked the hangers off of the bar, sending them to the ground. That meant I spent a lot of time picking up products, picking off grass, and re-hanging them.
My new PVC pipe is a little better. The wind pushes my product to one side, but I have a center pole which prevents the products from going any farther. Also the bar does not fall off like the wooden stand. I still have to occasionally pick up my products from the ground but nothing like what I had to do before.
6. Are your products displayed nicely?
A lot of thinking and planning went into your stand. Now it is time to set it up, stand back, and admire your work. Walk away from your stand and approach it as if you are a customer at an event. Check out how your stand looks from afar. Does it catch your eye? Does it call to you? Does it scream “COME HERE”?
As you approach, does you stand still scream “I HAVE COOL STUFF CHECK ME OUT!” or is it blah? Remember you are not the owner, you are just a customer walking by. Are you tempted to enter that 10×10 space to check out the products within?
If you answered yes to most of the questions above give yourself a pat on the back. You did it! If you answered no, what is it about your stand that turns you off? Ask friends and family to do the same thing and give you their opinions on how they feel about your set up. You never know when one of those wonderful people in your life might just have an absolutely genius idea that you just couldn’t see because you’re too close to the situation. It can happen, I promise.
Make sure you take the time to make your stand pretty. This is your first impression. You need to use it to get people in your space to potentially purchase your products. Don’t make a bad impression!
7. Will it fix in a 8×8 area?
Most shows have a 10×10 area for your booth with about a foot or two in-between you and your neighbor. But sometimes you come across a show that has an 8×8 spot or even an 5×11 area. You’re going to want to make sure you can use your stand at all the shows you sign up for or what’s the point? Trust me, you don’t want to alienate your neighbors by encroaching in their allotted space. You need their good will for customers and the occasional pee break.
I hope you learned something from my tips! And I hope it makes your stand building experience a little more productive than mine. Good luck!
Have a beautiful stand idea/display? Please share a picture below! I’d love to see it.
Have any other tips to add? Comment below!