How do you make your zine fest display look nice?

[Katie]

Hey everybody. I've been doing more zine fests and craft fairs recently, and I have a few coming up soon. I'd appreciate hearing about what you all have done to display your zines and books. I always just lay the zines flat in stacks, and that looks just fine of course, but it would be nice to mix it up a bit. People who sell crafty wares always seem to have such creative displays, and then I feel like my table looks sort of limp and sad by comparison. I don't feel it makes much sense for me to buy commercial display racks and stuff, but there must be something I can make or repurpose. Can anyone help?

[TimT]

I usually take cakes along because they seem to make everything look more attractive. But then most people don't seem to eat the cakes I take along! What, is it because I have a beard?

It's good to feed the vegans though. I was at a fair last year and I was chatting to a scrawny-looking kid in dreads. I offered him a biscuit and he refused. At that point I cried, 'IT'S VEGAN!' And he immediately turned around and took a biscuit. Didn't buy a zine, but he did take a biscuit.

Tablecloths, you say? Excellent idea.

[Katie]

Beards and cakes are a potentially messy combination so you're right to be concerned.

Quelle coincidence, I almost broke my "try not to respond to posts on We Make Zines" rule earlier today in order to respond to your duck post. It was a dandy!

TimT said:

I usually take cakes along because they seem to make everything look more attractive. But then most people don't seem to eat the cakes I take along! What, is it because I have a beard?

It's good to feed the vegans though. I was at a fair last year and I was chatting to a scrawny-looking kid in dreads. I offered him a biscuit and he refused. At that point I cried, 'IT'S VEGAN!' And he immediately turned around and took a biscuit. Didn't buy a zine, but he did take a biscuit.

Tablecloths, you say? Excellent idea.

[Sarah Arr!]

This is so super informative. I just did my first table thing as a distro. Going in, I was really concerned about having enough stuff to fill up a table, but as soon as I started laying stuff out, I could see that I had brought too much. Something I did to help was to organize zines by size. 

Also, I'm a balloon artist by trade (that's what I do for a living) and I make this balloon caterpillar sometimes at gigs to display my business cards. Since I almost always have balloons on me, I made the caterpillar, and stuck stickers and postcards in the folds to display them. And since the event was at a bar, I borrowed some shot glasses from the bartender, and used those to hold 1" buttons. The show was kind of a bust, but I met some cool people, and learned a little about organizing my table.