Show me the money: My National Stationery Show Budget

I've been meaning to do a post on the Stationery Show for a while, but life kept getting in the way: orders, going to Russia, looking for new apartments, packing and moving, etc., so blogging was pushed to the side for a while. But we have moved, and we finally have internet, and even though we're still unpacking and searching for some furniture, things are getting back to normal, so I thought it might be a good time to talk about the Show and how I was able to do it on a budget.

Booth walls. There are basically 4 options for walls: hardwalls (either built by yourself and shipped or carried in by yourself, or provided by Javits), foamcore walls (either built by yourself or by Manny Stone), paper walls, and curtains. I ruled out curtains pretty early on, even though this was the cheapest option, because I had way too many cards to be able to put them on hanging boards. I didn't want to use paper because I was afraid it would look unprofessional. I don't have carpenter friends or storage for hard walls, and I didn't want to pay to have them made, shipped, and stored, especially considering this was my first show, so I decided to go with the foam core walls. I knew that Manny Stone charged an arm and a leg, and I knew from the research I'd done that many previous exhibitors had simply set up foamcore walls themselves. I decided to go the DIY route, since it was the most cost-effective option aside of curtains and paper walls.

There are several foamcore wall suppliers:
-Utrecht Art (they don't, however, sell flame retardant foamcore, so you would have to get it treated by a specialist. Javits doesn't let you spray it yourself anymore and show them the empty bottle.)

-Uline.com

-Setshop.com - I ultimately went with them. They are recommended by Javits for paper walls, but (and Javits/GLM/etc. don't tell you this) they also sell flame-retardant foamcore and deliver directly to Javits.

Cost of 7 4'x8' foamcore walls + delivery = $505.00

Lighting. I probably could have done more research on this, but I read on Sycamore Street Press' blog from their 2008 Stationery Show post that they recommended using Home Depot clip-on lamps and buying the 500W electricity for Javits. This was recommended as a cheap option, so I went with that. It freaked me out, though, when I found out that the lamps were outfitted for fluorescent lighting and couldn't take more than the equivalent of 60W candescent. So...check the wattage on your lighting before you buy the lamps!! I was complimented on the good lighting in my booth, which made me feel a little relieved.

Cost of 8 clip-on lamps and lightbulbs from Home Depot = $119.76
Cost of electricity = $113.50

Floor. With the floors, you again have several options. You can leave it as it is (good, I heard, if you have an industrial look), or you can cover it up with a large rug, carpet tiles, or foam tiles. Some people also had a hard white floor installed, which I believe comes with the Javits package. I bought the carpet tiles from FLOR at a 25% discount + free shipping, but I saw a lot of people using foam tiles, which were much cheaper. Wish I'd known about them before, because not only are they cheaper, they're also lighter and therefore cheaper to ship back!

*Update: You can also get cheaper carpet tiles at Home Depot! Thanks to Vicky for this info.

Cost of FLOR tiles for 8x10 booth = $360.63

Furniture. This I left until the last minute. Fortunately, we were lucky and found a desk on sale at Target for $50! We also borrowed the fold-up chairs from Mitya's aunt (yay, free furniture!).

Cost of desk = $50.00
Cost of chairs = $0.00

Miscellaneous Booth Items. This includes the wall decorations, the trays for our samples, the double-sided tape we used to stick up the cards, glue sticks, pens, clipboards.

Cost of paper for wall decorations = $20.00
Trays (2) = $25.00 (yup, this was purchased during the same last-minute Target trip where we bought the desk. We were not so lucky with the trays.)
Glue sticks and double-sided tape = $40.00 ($40 for glue sticks and tape? How much did they buy? you're probably wondering. Well, this was another stupid money mistake. About $27 of this was spent at the last minute at a pricey stationery store on the UWS. The other $13 was spent using 50% coupons at Michael's in North Carolina.)
Clipboards (3) = $5.33
Labels for cards = $11.73
Cloth storage boxes = free (from Mitya's aunt)

Booth Fee. Let's not forget the ever-so-hefty booth fee!

Cost of Booth = $2376.00

TOTAL BOOTH-RELATED COSTS = $3626.95

So, these are the costs related to the actual booth. But there are a lot of other expenses, too! Let's go through them:

Transportation. We decided to drive up to New York from North Carolina, because we didn't want to deal with cramming everything into two suitcases (especially not those carpet tiles!). And then, because my husband couldn't take the entire week off work, we actually had to rent a car, drop it off in NYC after we dropped off our things at Javits, and then he had to fly back on Monday and I had to take the train back. Also, we had to take either the subway or a taxi to Javits every day. Even though I lived in New York for 6 years and still know the subway system like the back of my hand, I shamefully had to take the taxi several times because of all the stuff we had to haul there and away and because I was running late to the Show two of the days (I'm not a morning person).

Car rental = $84.86
Plane ticket for Mitya = $181.00
Train ticket for me = free because I used my dad's Amtrak miles
Gas for car = $50.00
Taxi and subway fare = $45.00

Lodging. Thank God for family and friends in NYC! We stayed with Mitya's aunt and uncle, but happily, I have no shortage of free places to stay in NYC. This saved us around $1000.

Cost of lodging = $0.00

Food. I skipped breakfast and lunch most of the days of the Show. Dinners were limited to Shake Shack, pizza, and Hummus Place (although we did also treat Mitya's aunt and uncle to dinner at a Turkish restaurant, perhaps I should include that in our lodging cost :)).

Cost of food = $131.00

Pre-Show Marketing. This includes the mailers we sent out, the shipping costs for the mailers, the catalogues, the order forms, the press kits, and the buyer's list we purchased from Javits/GLM/signature mix. Even though the catalogues and order forms aren't *really* show-related (I'm still using them now), I'm including them in this section because I don't know where else to include them. :)

Mailers (1000; 500 for Chelleline Cards and 500 for Chelleline Voyages) = $51.28
Cost of sending mailers = $150.00
Printing catalogues and press kits = $1100.00 (I did this at Staples, again, another last minute decision, and I'm sure I could have found a cheaper solution if I'd done more research.)
Folders for press kits = $80.00 (Another last minute purchase, had to pay extra to get it shipped to us on time)
Stickers for press kits = $15.00
Order forms = $42.70 (done at FedEx/Kinko's)
Buyer's list = $240.00
Promotional pins = $101.93

All other costs. This includes the cost of shipping stuff back to our apartment (since we returned our rental car and I was going back by train, I couldn't carry everything back with me), the cost of printing our Voyages postcard samples, and anything else I couldn't fit into one of the above categories.

Shipping lamps, carpet tiles, etc. via UPS = $80.76
Cost of printing postcard samples = $200.00
Can't think of anything else for now....

TOTAL COST OF THE NATIONAL STATIONERY SHOW (all expenses included!) = $6,180.48

In conclusion, it is possible to do this show for under $10,000, and even under $5,000 if you're smart with money! If Mitya had been able to stay the whole week with me, we would have parked our car at our friend's house in New Jersey and would have been able to save $350, because we wouldn't have needed the rental car and plane ticket or to ship everything back via UPS (although we probably would have needed another $50 in gas and would've spent more on food since Mitya eats more than I do). Also, I made some stupid mistakes, namely with the floor and the printing that could have saved me more money, probably at least $500 or more. And you can probably spend less than I did if you go with paper walls or curtains.

If you're thinking of doing your first show, and trying to do it on a budget, feel free to email me at chelleline@yahoo.com with any questions. I'm happy to help!