The Road to Round Top (Part Two)

This is part two of a series about what I learned at a popular antique market.  In the last post I talked about a new store by the Junk Gypies and arriving at Round Top.  Here's the part where I really started to pay attention to the details in booths.  I looked at how they were set up, arranged, how people were responding to them, which booths were getting a lot of traffic, and what styles appealed to me.

Zapp Hall is one of the meccas of Round Top.  I have not looked into the history of the building but it is pretty amazing and seems to be at the core of this antique village.  As you can see, the booths are breath-taking with lighting and drapery.  The display is layered in such a way as to draw your eyes into every piece in the booth.  Wow!

 

So here were some of the lessons I learned...

A major part of making your booth appealing is using height.  You want to cause your customers to look at all levels of your booth.  You want their eyes to be drawn upward as they scan around.

It is also important to layer.  Creating some sort of backdrop helps to limit what your customers can see.  Now they see only what you want them to see and they are no longer distracted by other booths or clutter.  I also peeked around this screen and found all of the empty boxes that the owner had used to bring her items in.  So this backdrop also served as a barrier between her inventory and her supplies. 

 

Setting a scene was another tactic booth owners were using.  I am guessing this is so the customer can more easily picture that piece of furniture in their own home.  It also gives your customers decorating ideas.  So even if their home does not currently look like this, the customer can visualize it and dream of how they want their space to look.  Not everyone can look at piece of furniture and instantly know where it can go in their house or how they will use it.

Using empty space was very important as well.  This gal used this wrought iron framing and placed a covered table on the front and then the back.  The frame was sandwiched between the two tables.  She then hung silver platters from the frame and placed different silver pieces on the tables.  Notice she used shelves, a layered cake stand and a magazine rack to layer her items and fill more space.

 

I will be setting up my first booth in two weeks.  I am trying to be realistic about my expectations and capabilities. I will try to use some of each lesson incorporated into my booth.  It won't look as awesome as these, but you've got to start somewhere!

 

Wish me luck!