Don't Know What Needs to be in Your Henna Booth at a Festival? Walk Through My Booth with Me!
Ask Me Anything!
You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers!
In today’s Ask Me Anything!, we’re tackling the following questions submitted from hennapreneurs like you:
[00:16] Booth Location
[00:45] How I use tent height, flags, and banners to attract people to my henna booth
[01:08] What is on the front table of my henna booth
[01:45] A walk through of signage on my henna booth
[01:52] Offering free glitter on henna designs will delight your customers
[02:45] Where I put my fact sheet
[03:30] What’s at each artist’s station in my henna booth
[04:04] Why there’s a pricing key on the front of my henna design books
[04:15] How a booth babe makes everything run smoother
[05:26] Why I only let people who have paid inside of my henna booth
[05:52] How I keep my henna booth organized
[07:04] How I hang curtains and backdrops inside of my henna booth
[08:28] A little about the henna design books in my booth and what time of year is best to refresh your own henna design books
[08:49] Why being in
the Design Lab will make making your own design book so much easier
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+ Read the transcript here
Chelsea: Hey guys, so I thought, "I'm out festivaling today." and so I was like, "You know what? Maybe you guys want to see inside of the booth- my booth." Let's do a walk through because I'm set up before the festival starts, which is pretty rad. I gotta be honest, I tend to be a late arriver.
So, okay, so when you first come to the booth, so- the big thing for me is I'm trying to be seen, right? So I'm in this, this is my fourth or fifth year doing this festival and so I'm always in the same location right next to this ice cream shop that's right here on the corner. So this is really strategic for me. I always request to be in the same spot if the same spot works. And so, that works for me every year. But even still, I have a big, uh, 16 foot flag that I put up and, if you notice, my tent is up all the way. So it's a little bit taller than the other tents next to me. It's because I put it up all the way high, uh, because I want extra height on that flag and I want my chance to really stand out.
Now, of course, we've got the bright banners cause I want people to also recognize that, you know, there's something exciting going on over here. At my front table we've got multiple books. Here's my pricing key. Um, I use a pricing key so that I don't have to change the prices in my books every year. Instead, if I make any changes, I can just change this one page and everything in the books is adjusted as well. And I felt like it was really good to give a personal touch.
So on my signage there's some information about me so they can contact me. Just a little message letting them know that their experience is important to me so they can share feedback with me directly and it gives them my email.
Um, I give a push for custom designs for artist's choice because obviously I work faster that way and I love it.
And then up here at the top, I've got just the big banner. Simple "Henna", identifying of course that it is natural and that I'm Baltimore's top-rated artist, because that's important. And, um, the same over here I've got the push for free glitter with every design. Now this seems like a really simple thing to say, but it's really important that you surprise and delight your clients. And so, one of the things for me is surprising them with that free glitter and delighting them. When you get that poof of sparkle, you know, everybody gets excited.
So I've got multiple signs. If you notice on every single sign I've got a thing that says, "I take credit cards." And you know what? It doesn't matter that there's signs on all of these, including that banner that's over there that's flapping around - it also has information about me taking cards - and guess what? People are still gonna ask me all day long, "do you take cards?" And it's going to make me crazy. But you know it works. I'll bring it inside. So the other day I was at- I'll show you this side here. Here's just a simple banner. It gives a little bit of the contact information, the same.
On the side, I have the fact sheet because- so this is the thing at the front of the booth, I always have a booth babe when I have busy events, but when I'm working by myself - notice that little sign, haha - when I'm by myself, um, I don't always have the opportunity to answer questions. So I have a fact sheet that I put- um, if I'm working by myself that sheet goes on the front. If I have a booth babe then that sheet goes on the side and I sit right there. So the thing is, even with me sitting here, people will come up to this side and look at the books and they'll ask me questions. So instead of fielding questions, I point them right up to that sign while I'm working right here. If I hear them ask a question that's not addressed on the sign, then I'll answer it for them.
I have two tables set up because actually one of the hennapreneurs is going to be joining me today! At each station we've got a cloth because I don't use paper towels to clean the cones anymore. I use tea towels so that, um, so that, you know, it's just- it's more ecofriendly. So, each station has a poofer. It has tape, it has scissors. There's a little brush to dust off, extra glitter from the skin in case it's, you know. There's alcohol, there's um, cotton balls and these topless sandals in case anyone wants to get their feet done, they can still get their feet done. This is a little jar for tips. Each artist has their bowl of glitter and each artist also has a book of their own. Notice that the pricing key is on the front of every book. I'm horrible in that I never remember the colors for the prices. So I always have to check the pricing key. Inside of the book, each book has, uh, uh, numbers, right?
So what happens is, the booth babe will come to the boo- the clien- the customers will come to the booth and the booth babe will take their name. See, there's his little station up there. He'll sit there and on that piece of paper right there, he's going to write down their name, their phone number, the cost of the design based on the color. He's gonna write down the page number and he's going to write down the artist who did the work. And so what happens is, on that page, he'll write down all that information. And then as we work through the things, um, as each artist is assigned, then he'll just, he'll put a circle around their name, like, yes, it went to that person. And, um, and that's how we keep track also of who's making what money throughout the day. But then what's great is, um, for us, once it's our- like, it's time for the customer be seated, we will, um, he'll say, "OK, um, Chelsea, this is Allie," you know, whatever the person's name, "Chelsea, this is Allie. She's getting the design on the top left of page 83." for example. And so I can go to my book and just flip to page 83 and I know, okay, this is the design she's getting. I'll confirm with her and make sure that it's correct and if she says, "Yes." then there we go.
So, that's the artist station. Both stations have the same thing. Logistics wise, this is the- obviously this is the slower table. This on the front will be the most busy. Um, we have people-, so he greets people from this entrance here and then we have them come in and out from the side. Um, this is something that works really well for me because I only allow people who've already paid money to come in the booth. So by keeping the front totally blocked off, they can't, they can't enter unless they've paid him and then they can come in through the corner.
Let me show you guys underneath because one of the things is always like, you want to make sure that your stuff is like, you know, somewhat organized. I try to kee- stay that way, but you know. So here's like- here's my now empty bin and I have a bin over there too that has some, some stuff in it. I try to keep all of my items inside of plastic bins because you never know if it's going to rain and if it rains, you don't want your stuff to get soaked. So I have, um, you know, bins under here with some additional stuff. And um, this bag has, uh, some additional, um, linens because depending on the type of vendors that are next to me, sometimes I put up- sometimes I'm petty and I'll put up walls on all sides. Uh, but my vendors on my sides today are pretty okay. So I'm good with that.
Oh! One thing that's new today in the booth is these bad boys. I grabbed them on clearance at Ikea. I want to say that I got them for - I can tell you actually - I found them on clearance for 14 bucks, but they are, um, they're on sale right now and Ikea for, I want to say, $30. Bottom line, they were a really good find. I found them in the as-is department. So I grabbed two.
Let me show you guys this because I always get questions about how I hang the stuff in the back. So, this is really easy. Okay, so what I do, these two that are on the sides, these are connected with bungee cords. So I run a bungee through the top of the, um, through the top of the corner and then I hook it underneath, up underneath, right? And then I just tie these ones on the corner just in a simple knot. Now these ones up top, these ones I put onto just the pipe of PVC. So if you see I've got PVC up here, I run it through like a curtain rod, and then I toss it right on- right underneath or over it, over top of the bars. Then, here at the bottom, because you don't want, uh, you don't want the wind to blow it- like, to blow them around.
Um, so here at the bottom I have a bigger PVC pipe and I run- this one is very, very big. And so I run it through the bottom so that it weighs it all down. If it's particularly windy, this will still blow. So what I have is I always have in my bins some ribbon, some string, and I'll run it through the length of the PVC and actually tie it to the ends of the tent to the sides of the tent so that it doesn't fall.
Now up here at the top, I've got my clips and that's how I clip up the, um, the backdrop and then I just hide those clips with the, with the curtain. So it works out really, really well.
[Inaudible] said, "How- where do you, where do you get your design books? Do you make them yourself?" So actually, the design books that I'm using right now are a mix. Though normally by two years I get bored of doing the same things. So at two- at year two, I'll go through and I'll cull them. And I'll just keep the designs that are, like, the bestsellers or the ones that I really like to do. Um, and then the other ones, I'll just get rid of and I'll replace them with something new. So, but that's something that you do in the off season.
Uh, side note, if you're in the Design Lab, you get designed templates every month. So if you go, and if you're in the Design Lab, you can go to the downloads tab at the bottom of every class. And I give you designs that you can put in your design books just like these, um, so that you can, um, you can use them. So you- like, you're always getting new designs every month. Normally there's two designs in each book. Then there's two prompts for you to create your own. But also like some months I'll give you like bonus design templates just because I was having fun creating something and I'll be like, "Here. Take it!"
Um, so yeah. But, that's the booth. Uh, I hope you like it. Uh, I dunno if you guys have any other questions about what, what my, what my booth set up is like and how I, how I do the things. But if you do, you're welcome to leave them in the comments and I'll come back and answer, okay? All right.