Just wanted to let you guys know that things went well. We sold about 70 shirts in what was basically a two half-days event. This was our first event, so we were happy.
What did we learn?
1. A big, bold backdrop is a must. We got stuck with kind of a bad location. We were back in a corner about 20-30 from the natural walkway. However we had a sizable backdrop (8' x 8') with a 8' x 3' banner on top of that. We had our shirts hung up by a clothes pins on a nylon rope with lights shining on both the shirts and banner (the lights would occasionally go down). Consequently several times I would see people start to walk by and then look at our display and come over.
2. Promoting your product is a must. We had a really simple and cheesy (supposed to be) give away that my partner canvassed the crowd with. We bought a button maker ($300 for the machine, less than a nickel a piece for the button parts) and we made a bunch of buttons with our logo on it. Then we went on Amazon and ordered slim jims (beef sticks) for what turned out to be $0.15 a piece. My partner walked around asking people "Button or beef?" I know that is really random, but it was a young crowd and they appreciate the randomness of that. He had lot of good responses and we had people coming up to the booth asking for both items.
3. Its good to have a cheap alternative product for people (especially if you're selling to a younger crow). In our case it was buttons. We had several of our shirt designs on buttons that we sold for a buck. Many of the kids who didn't want to pay $17 (incl tax) for a shirt ended up buying a button or two.
