At Sole Commerce last week, we felt nostalgic for our beginning years- when we were so excited about the trade shows that we would spend hours planning and decorating the booth.  At the beginning we had to work harder to attract our customers and make our presence memorable.

Here’s a couple images from those first couple presentations. Wow, did we have energy to build things or what!

One time we even built a bedroom set and made a duvet cover and pillow set from our signature orange and cream striped lining!  Well, like many things in Vegas,  it was fun while it lasted.   But then we had to break down that bed and dispose of it in the desert heat (not fun in Vegas).

In more recent times we’ve simplified the booth design to almost no design.   Are we lazy?  Or did we realize that all that hard labor may not have paid off in sales and perhaps our efforts are better spent at other forms of marketing?  After all, the shoe designs are what really sell the collection and now many customers already know the brand.  However, where’s the happy medium?

Here’s some booths at Sole Commerce last week that were notable for being decorative and (key word) portable.

Our handsome friend Ben Duensing from Vintage Footwear and Korkease.  Sunflowers and wooden milk crates- easy peasy….

At The Furies, just a handful of origami butterflies made the difference.

At Civic Duty they covered the wall in Tyvek (the material they are making the shoes from) and attached the footwear to the wall with velcro tape.  Bravo!