Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The Road to NSS: Two months to go!

It's less than two months to the National Stationery Show! Eek! Let's take stock of where I am now. Unfortunately I don't feel like I've gotten much done in the last month!

February's "to do" list:

NEED TO DO:
- more card designs to finish
- photograph new cards
- revise wholesale catalog in progress
- continue researching stores in progress
- finalize and print mailers, and mail them  done!
- continue working on and finalizing booth design
- print new business cards
- work on press kits
- create elements for booth in progress
- design booth freebies
- order booth freebies
- design and print stickers for display cards
- create print versions of my mother's card line in progress
- select new Voyages postcards, greeting cards and print samples in progress
- buy the necessary furniture & equipment for booth I'll be carting our own furniture up to New York!
- resolve parking issue with car Parking car at my friend's house in New Jersey. Turns out that the 6 years I spent in NYC weren't all for nothing!

And let's take a look at the damage so far:

Booth fee = $2376.00
FLOR tiles (at 25% off with free shipping) = $360.63
Clip-on lamps from Home Depot = $119.76
Electricity = $113.50
Carbon copy wholesale order forms = $42.70
Printing costs for mailer = $51.28
LOUIE Awards submission = $150.00

Total as of March 26, 2014 = $3213.87

I'm hoping to keep the costs under $5000, although my firm budget is $7000. It helps that we won't have to pay for a hotel - we have family and lots of friends in the area.

When this is all over, I plan to do a few more blog posts on how to prepare for the show, and how to do it on a budget and still look professional (assuming I pull *that* one off, haha!). But for now, I'm hoping that these updates will help future NSS exhibitors get an idea of where they should be. It also helps keep me accountable!