more layout options

I had shown you an easy foam board layout for a 10'x10' booth here , by using 3, 4'x8' foam board panels per wall. You would place a panel at each side, right to the corner and overlap a 3rd panel in the center of the wall, like this (this shows one wall).
For a 10'x 10' booth, this design layout would use 9 panels of foam board.

Here is another way to plan your layout.

Find the center of your wall. Line up 2 panels of foam board so that they meet in the center of your wall. Now you will have 1 foot left of space on either side to cover up.

At this point, you can play around with your design a little bit...

1- You can start putting up your side walls now, but start at the front poles on each side, like this.

You will have 2 panels per wall, on your back wall, the panels will be centered, on the side walls your panels will be lined up with the front poles. Result will be 2 feet of unfoamed wall on each of your side walls (the area near the back of your booth), plus, 1 foot on each side of your back wall that is unfoamed. In other words, your 2 back corners will be open.

2- Here comes the fun part...well, some of us weirdos think this is fun!...

You can now decide how you would like to cover your empty space in the back corners.

You might want to use a panel that is scored down the center to fit into the corners. You can slip the excess behind your already set panels, or trim them with a sharp box cutting tool/blade.

You might decide to make a diagonal wall, by attaching a panel from your back wall to your side wall. There are no rules here...you can do both corners differently, one as a fit corner and one as a diagonal, get creative! This can actually make your very square booth look a little bit more interesting and architectural.

* A note here on storing excess samples or supplies. If you decide to do a diagonal wall, you can actually use the space behind it for some storage! Sometimes we simply tape one side closed on the bottom near the floor and this way we can open the diagonal wall when we need to get back there. (very convenient!)

see our diagonal wall (below) on the right, we displayed our press features on it.

we also kept the trunk in front of it to keep the wall in place!

we did the same thing here (below) with a diagonal wall.

If you make a mistake, cut down your foam board in the wrong place or find that your booth is not exactly the dimensions you had planned for, or the perfect square you had hoped for, don't sweat it, once it's all up and your samples are displayed, if a seam is not perfect, or if one wall is not exactly the mirror image of the other, it won't show...relax, no one will notice! If you need to cleanly run white tape down all your seams to keep things straight and secure, do it! it will look fine (try to use matte rather than glossy tape for that!), if you need to use some heavy duty clamps or extra velcro tape or hot glue- do it!...this is all illusion, it doesn't have to withstand weeks or months of use, it's temporary and really just theater, keep that in mind!

shelves?

By now, you have probably noticed that some of the photos of my booth  feature shelves on the foam board walls...These amazing shelves were the perfect size and weight for trade shows and were available at Ikea for years, to make matters even better (at the time), they ran about $3 per shelf, can you believe it? They called it the STRIPPA shelf (trust me, it is taking every ounce of restraint I can muster to not comment on the name).
Back to the perfect $3 shelf. Kind of too good to be true!...Yes, yes it was! Ikea does not make them anymore. (Waaaaa WAAAA, can you hear that disappointment music?...) I will post a bunch of close up photos of them however, when I am reunited with them in August at the show, if you know a carpenter or woodworker, you might be able to have some made, the construction is crazy easy.
If you want to use another type of small shelf, you can, and hanging them might sound like a process, but in actual fact, it is not that horrible to do, it just takes a little patience, some measuring and some organizing.
Here it goes.

Basically, what you are going to do, is sandwich your foam board between a strip of wood and a shelf,
that is how the shelf will stay up.
In the case of the STRIPPA shelves, there were simply 2 holes supplied, right in the shelves to hang them up.
A screw in each and presto, the shelf was up.

here's a closer shot of a single shelf, you can see where the screws go in on either side of the clipboards.

My process went something like this.
1- I would decide how many shelves I wanted to use and where I wanted to place them on the walls.
2- I would organize my 4-5 ft wood strips and drill holes about a half inch from the top of each one (hole should be wide enough to get a tie wrap through).
3- I would tie wrap the strips of wood to the top pipe (through the drilled holes). The strips of wood would now be hanging down from the top pipe/bar.

you can repeat this step as many times as you need, ie: if you want to put 3 shelves up on this back wall, you will need to tie up 6 wood strips, 2 per shelf. You can do the same for your side walls.

4- Once my wood strips were in place, I would place a sheet of foam board in front of the wood strips, essentially hiding them. For example, if I was starting to put up my foam board in this example on the left side of the back wall it would look like this.

 5- Before you do anything else, it's time to attach a shelf!  I would simply hold my shelf where I wanted to hang it, have a helper hold it, or have the helper reach around and hold the wood strips in place, and drill! (I liked to put my handy little level on the shelf before drilling, just to make sure that it was straight)...As I drill the screw through the shelf holes, they go right through the foam board and into the wood strips behind it. The wood strips ensure that everything is solid and tight and able to bare weight without the foam board tearing. In essence, the wood is carrying the burden of the weight and the foam board is simply sandwiched between the wood and the shelf. It's that easy!

later that day...

but, here's what it will look like (without xray vision)

So, there you have it...the process I used to put up sturdy little shelves in an unstable little world!

I will be testing out lots of new ideas at the show this August however, as I am working with http://www.foamwerks.com/ testing out all their really cool products! I can't wait to share ideas, tips and tricks!

round poles, flat poles...

This is a quick post to let you know that whether your booth comes equipped with round pipes
(photo A)

or flat pipes (photo B) (sounds strange, but some do!)

you can attach your foam board to either.

If you are not getting too fancy (ie: putting up shelving or hanging anything that is heavy to the foam board) the quickest way to attach your foamboard to the pipes is using heavy duty sticky velcro tape.

I love this stuff! But remember, it is STICKY! You won't be able to re-stick it on your foam board once  you have stuck it, you get one chance for this only!

You can buy this at hardware stores or even some office supply stores, I go to http://www.homedepot.com/ or http://www.lowes.com/ usually. It has 2 parts to it that "Velcro" together, one strip will stick to the other, and both strips have sticky outsides. Simply take a good sized piece of it, stick it to the back of your foam board up close to the top edge (but not over the edge, still on the back), peel off the other side and stick it right to the pole/drape/curtain...whatever it is. Presto, your wall is up! I know right? so simple!...

Another popular way to hang foam board to booth structures is using tie wraps, or cable wraps,

these thingies:

Basically the easiest way to use them is to puncture a hole through your foam board a couple of inches below the top edge and stick your tie wrap through the hole from the front, then around the pole/pipe and then secure it closed, you can clip off any excess tie wrap bits that are ugly, too visible or sticking up. DO NOT tie the tie wrap SO tight that it rips your foam board, because then, you are in trouble. Tie them just tight enough to hold them in place and then use some tape or velcro to straighten them out and position them.

Now, this whole sticking the walls up part  is quite simple, but take my advice on a couple of things

1- Make sure that the bottom edge of your foam board is ON the floor, don't try to hang it up an inch or so above the floor- your board will be straight and much stronger if it is ON the floor.

 

2- Plan your foam board layout BEFORE you start sticking stuff up willy nilly.

For example, if your booth is 10' x10' and you know your foam board is 4' wide, how are you going to plan your walls?...decide if you want to start with 2 sheets of board up against each corner (or side wall) and then one overtop, in the center. In other words, the center sheet would overlap on each of the side sheets, like this:

You would then repeat this same process on each of the side walls, thus using a total of 9 sheets of foam board.

*Remember, if you are going to use any sort of a clamp type lighting solution, the clamps will also help to secure your foamboard to your booth's structural pipes.

I will give you several more layout possibilities in the next post, stay tuned! 

your booth and you! a love/hate relationship.

After the previous posts, you might be asking yourself how I could possibly have more to say about foam board...I do...lots more! After using it for years, I have had coups, and, I have had terrible mishaps, I have found great ways to use it, stick stuff to it, hang it, hang stuff to it (even heavy...yes, I CAN!, and will show you how) and embellish it and make it look interesting and architectural...

But do you know what one of the best things about foam board is? When the show is over, I walk out of the convention center and I leave it there...that's right, I never look back...I walk right out! Why? Because at about $20 per sheet and given the fact that foam board would not travel very well on my single pallet, I say, forget it, move on, let it go, buh bye!

As you learned in a previous post, and from links, foam board is made of foam on the inside, HA, go figure! Therefore, if you step on it, puncture it, rip it or scratch it, you really can't repair it, unless you use tape, and a sheet of foam board with tons of tape keeping it together is not sleek or elegant (remember that!).
So, in my humble opinion, move on, for the few hundred dollars that you will spend on booth stuff that you will leave behind, trust me, it's worth it. You will save time, energy, headaches and your pack up will be so much speedier, and as you know, or will know soon enough, when the show is over, the show is OVER, you just want to go home. Leave the old foam board, move on and go home! (I give you permission).

Although that is definitely a PRO for foam board, because you get out and get home quickly, the obvious CON is that you have spent some money on something you can't really reuse. Unless you have the HUGE box that the foamboard came in (and you might not get the box unless you ordered a box full) and a big enough pallet/crate to ship it properly so as not to have it damaged during shipping, you are NOT going to want to reuse it.

Recyclers, reusers, people greener-than-thou, please accept my apologies now and don't moan about it, this is my advice, take it or leave it. I look at it like this, extra hours, extra wasted energy, extra shipping, thus extra fuel consumption, all that to then show up at the next show and see your do-gooding fall to pieces because your recycled foam board has shown up all crapped up and broken...SO NOT WORTH IT! If you can make it work, and keep it for a couple of shows, you are my hero and you should definitely start a blog about how to preserve and ship foam board and link it to me, or at least, a blog post about it.

Cool, now that's out of the way.

Factoid: At this point you should really know that for some crazy fabulous reason, the booths at Americasmart in Atlanta can be foam boarded for you for a VERY reasonable price, and there are even quite a few color choices. Wondering if you should spend the money?, I say YES, let them do it for you, they do a great job. I don't have too too much that is positive to say about the Atlanta show (Gifts and home furnishings market specifically) but this foam board option is amazing. I can't for the life of me understand why it is so affordable in Atlanta and so outrageously expensive in NY, and the Atlanta job is 100% better too (with a wooden structure behind the foam board even!), one of the many mysteries of the trade show universe, I might need to further investigate one day.

Here is an example of your booth that you just spent tons of money on, this one is your basic 10' x 10', you might even get a wastebasket and chair if you are lucky, rest assured, they will be ugly and old.

You will likely get a cardboard sign with your company name on it and possibly the booth number. You will most definitely toss it in the supplied wastebasket, smart move! It's really ugly.

Your show will likely have a show color that is chosen for the carpet, depending on which section you are in, or you can pay more money and choose a custom color that can be installed for you, also relatively ugly, if the carpet is black, heads up, it will absord TONS of light, expect to either really EXTRA light your booth or have a darker looking booth.

This kind of booth is called a pipe and drape booth. Pipes fit together to make up the structure of the booth and ugly, usually beige satiny drapes are hung on 3 sides for your taking down/ covering up/ hiding pleasure.

Some shows have not so ugly drapes, in our present juried in section Studio, at the NY show, we have an off white stretched canvas/muslin type fabric that is on the walls. It's actually not that bad, looks much better than than the usual drape used and yes, we pay lots more to be in this section.
Do we cover it up? We certainly do! (there goes that!).
We also opt to not have carpet in our booth. We will get to our flooring soon, (in a rush? I mentioned it here) but last we checked, apparently the shows are cutting down hundreds of ugly synthetic forests and plants to make the horrendously expensive ugly carpets exhibitors can order, word has it that they do not recycle them or reuse them, they are simply thrown out at the end of the show...hopefully someone will comment otherwise, but last we checked, that was the story and I don't like it!

Save a synthetic ugly carpet tree, opt out!

Are you getting impatient now? Wondering how we went from this:

to this:

this

or this, relatively painlessly and quickly?

Stay tuned, next post, how to actually get the foam board to hang on the walls!