Attending Baby Fairs, Expos & ShowsConversation surrounding the details of organizing your own table to host at an event.
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Sunday is a huge day! I'm the organizer of a baby/family expo taking place here.
We have 30 exhibitors, plus tons of fun stuff for the kids:
- art and activity area
- bounce castle
- 3 musical performances (drumming, puppets and song, and children's music)
- ongoing puppet show
- roving clowns w/ balloon animals
- roving magician
- roving characters/mascots
Over a dozen door prizes, grand prize a $300 Babies R' Us/Toys R' Us gift card.
It's free admission too. We've had 1/4 page ads in the newspaper since January (starting with a call for exhibitors), Babies R' Us has put a flyer in every shopping bag since Feb. 1 and promoted it in-store with posters, etc., and we have 100 posters and 10,000 postcards out in the community. There's a special 3-page promo section coming out in the local family magazine today, along with an article in the newspaper today.
Please keep your fingers crossed for a smooth day with good turnout and happy exhibitors! I don't expect I'll be at my doula exhibit much, but my two partners will be there. Hopefully we'll get some clients/students out of this too, as it's been an incredible amount of work!
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CD(DONA), LCCE, BDT(DONA)
Doula and natural childbirth instructor
Birth doula trainer
This Member Says "Thanks!" to JessicaE For This Post:
Great job putting together an expo; it's incredibly time-consuming work! Good luck for Sunday, and please remember to take photographs - we'd love to see how your big day turned out!
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Yesterday is history; tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift...
That's why we call it the present.
Every once in a while this shallow world surprises us with depth.
$200 per exhibitor (wedding expos in the area cost $350-400)
Exhibitor fees were the major source of funding, plus $250 from one cash sponsor (which also offered organizational help). Costs were the venue, a web site that I created on the cheap through godaddy.com, Vistaprint for postcards and posters, a few decorations, and liability insurance. The rest I begged, borrowed and got for free. We're in the black.
The advertising came because the newspaper and the family magazine it publishes came on board as headline sponsors. I think that has made a huge difference! We got two more calls this afternoon to sign on as exhibitors, but it's too late to add them. But a good sign that people are excited about it with the big publicity push coming out.
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CD(DONA), LCCE, BDT(DONA)
Doula and natural childbirth instructor
Birth doula trainer
These 2 Members Say "Thanks!" to JessicaE For This Post:
Sounds like you've had your hands full! I do hope all goes well Sunday and that you have a fabulous turnout!
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B'earth Angel the absentee doula "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
Yes, I'll keep any extra, as I've put in hundreds of hours since December and I personally took the financial risk if we didn't break even. I took this on hoping we'd "just" break even, but now that it's almost behind me, I'm really grateful that there will probably be a little extra. And thank goodness we're not in the red, DH had a fit when he realized that ** I ** could lose money on this gig.
Are you thinking of organizing an expo, Christy?
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CD(DONA), LCCE, BDT(DONA)
Doula and natural childbirth instructor
Birth doula trainer
Not really, at least not in the near future. I just like to gather data and store it away for future reference. This is why I can't remember what I'm supposed to get done in the next 3 days...because I'm thinking about what I might do 6/8/12 months from now
goodluck!! i would love to do something like that someday
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"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals". ~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Yes, it was awesome! We estimate about 2,000 people attended (Babies R' Us gave out 700-720 bags, we figure each family averaged about 3 people). We'd hoped for 500 people, so we were all thrilled. I'm exhausted, and it's 3 days later!
A lot of my photos show kids faces, and it doesn't seem right to post those. But here are a few. These were taken when traffic slowed down a little bit because, well, that's when I actually had time to take a few pics! You can see in the performance shot the professional photographer in the background, I can't wait to see his pics.
The first booth shot is our doula booth, those are my partners. The massage shot is a little guy getting a massage from one of the vendors (also my part-time employer, a massage center).
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CD(DONA), LCCE, BDT(DONA)
Doula and natural childbirth instructor
Birth doula trainer
These 2 Members Say "Thanks!" to JessicaE For This Post:
Also, just wanted to add that we learned a lot... The hotel didn't keep up on the water tables, so they got trashed really quickly.
The clown who called us and volunteered to come was kind of scary, and smelled like an ashtray! No one seemed to care too much, but it really bothered us.
The puppet show left because it was too noisy and they couldn't hear their CD (they don't have an actual script, they go along w/ a CD).
The bounce castle and the kids gym area were HUGE hits. Vendors were really happy with the turnout, and we figured out some ways to tweak the layout next year to make it even better, traffic-wise.
The performances were huge hits, everyone had a fun time there. The art projects went over really well, too. The magician was GREAT, I'd like to hire him for a personal party of my own sometime. Door prizes also went over big, especially since the grand prize was $300 from Babies R' Us/Toys R' Us.
We had a little snow on the ground and it was very cold that day, which was GREAT for an inside event like this! It was a very smart move to incorporate family fun with the vendor booths, I'm sure that was a big factor in turnout. The ad director from the magazine we partnered with suggested that in the very beginning, and he was SO right.
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CD(DONA), LCCE, BDT(DONA)
Doula and natural childbirth instructor
Birth doula trainer
Hopefully we'll get some clients/students out of this too, as it's been an incredible amount of work!
Great job putting together an expo; it's incredibly time-consuming work! Good luck for Sunday, and please remember to take photographs - we'd love to see how your big day turned out! 
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So, how did this go? Any photos from the event?
