Ideas for a booth

[spotics]

Hey guys,

My meetup group is planning a booth at a festival. Since we were not allowed to pass out literature, we planned to sell water as a way to lure people to our booth. However we have been told we cannot do this.

What can we do to draw interest to our booth?

[ronpaulyourmom]

Hey guys,

My meetup group is planning a booth at a festival. Since we were not allowed to pass out literature, we planned to sell water as a way to lure people to our booth. However we have been told we cannot do this.

What can we do to draw interest to our booth?

Give out cookies with Ron Paul napkins or something. You probably need to give the cookies away for free, but its cheaper than bottled water probably hehe.

Honestly though cookies are a big draw. Bake a bunch at home and bring them in, or if you can swing it, get a mini-toaster oven going at your booth and make em fresh. Tons of people who walk by will stop and hang out for a minute as they eat. If you got a big jug for juice or water, that'll help keep them around too. Gotta wash the cookie down!

Obviously they need some videos to watch as they eat...

[Lord Xar]

yeah, baked goods....free..

then perhaps bring a generator with a tv to play his youtbue videos over and over.. etc.. OR give out free fortune cookies WITH ron pauls messages inside WITH his web address etc..... you can buy fortune cookies online WITH your own personalized messages inside..

[ronpaulyourmom]

yeah, baked goods....free..

then perhaps bring a generator with a tv to play his youtbue videos over and over.. etc.. OR give out free fortune cookies WITH ron pauls messages inside WITH his web address etc..... you can buy fortune cookies online WITH your own personalized messages inside..

That fortune cookie thing is pretty cool. We should get more people on top of that.

[honkywill]

We are looking to give away free water at our booth.

[quickmike]

If you have the means and an electrical outlet available to you, bring a flat screen TV and hook it up to a DVD player and play one of the Ron Paul DVDs. That will draw people to at least stay a little while and watch some of what he says. That will cause even more people to wonder what everyone is watching. Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.

I dont belong to a Meetup group, but a friend of mine and myself did this with my 37' flat screen at a farm progress show and alot of people watched and picked up a flyer afterwards. Hell, we didnt even have cookies. Wish I would have thought of that as well LOL

[libertythor]

Anybody recommend a fortune cookie company that will make them cheap? Maybe the messages could be printed in Chinese on the reverse side. That would be a hit in San Francisco.

[LizF]

Quickmike's suggestion about the TV/DVD playing RP videos is excellent.

Another suggestion, particularly if your booth will be outside, is to consider having balloons to give away. There was a couple in Michigan who did this quite effectively a few months ago: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=5084&highlight=michigan

(Unfortunately, the link to the article mentioned in that thread is no longer active.)

[kmj.ronpaul]

I organized a booth for my group at our county fair over Labor Day weekend; the fair drew ~250,000 guests, and our table was besieged with visitors at all hours of the day!

Based on my experience, here are some suggestions:

1. We knew that a political booth would not be attractive to children (and the parents who follow them around!), so to draw in the kids I purchased a huge 2-gallon glass jar and filled it with jelly beans. Each visitor submitted a guess, and the person who guessed the closest to the actual # of beans in the jar won it! This promotion proved to be a great "lure". (Our fair absolutely prohibited helium balloons, so those weren't an option... Make sure that your event allows them before you begin purchasing balloon supplies!)

2. We had printed up a large banner of the "mosaic" newspaper ad that appeared before the Iowa straw poll. (visit meetup.com, Chesterland, OH 44026 group's site (Ron Paul group #213) -- photos of the booth are there). This banner was stunning, and drew a lot of "wow"s from passersby. You might want to do something similar to catch people's attention.

3. We did have a tv displaying Ron Paul dvds. This was viewed by visitors, but be careful that the volume isn't so loud that it drowns out conversations of your booth workers with visitors.

4. We had a carton of Ron Paul dvds that we gave away.

5. I purchased large (1/2 gallon) glass jars, and bulk candy (patriotic-themed), to set out. Again, this was inviting and drew people to the table.

6. A cheap but attractive way to "wallpaper" your booth space is to buy RP rally signs (I got them for ~$1.60 each, 12" high x 18" long).

7. I purchased crushed-velour tablecloths (one red, one blue) to cover our 2 booth tables. One of my co-organizers criticized me for being "extravagant", but imho these tablecloths looked beautiful and, i think, added a touch of class to our booth space. Plus, now we're reusing these tablecloths for our gun-show booths!

8. We sold t-shirts; our supplier was able to provide them to us for ~$3 each, so we sold them cheaply. If you are able to sell shirts for ~$5 each, people will buy them even if they're not Ron Paul fans, just because they're cheap clothing! :)


If you'd like me to give you names of the suppliers I used (for glass jars, bulk candy, banner printing, etc.), or even the specific products I purchased, this would save you some time comparison-shopping (I spent a long time doing this!), email me at kmj.ronpaul@gmail.com and I can give you more specifics!

Good luck!
Kathy

[hopeforamerica]

All we did was give out free Ron Paul balloons and face painting for the kids. We could hardly keep up with the crowds.

This was at the constitution fair last Saturday. Free stuff work well, and this was not too expensive.


Good luck!