Expo - night before

So, today we went and set up for the Chicago Pet Expo in Darien.  Intended to leave at 12, but left more like 12:45, never fails.  Got there around 1:30, parked, and started unloading.  I wasn't sure if we could pull the car in and again, never fails.... we couldn't.  And... we forgot our dolly at home.  Not that it would have been a huge huge help, because we have a small foldable one.  But I asked the exhibitor a few booths down and she let me borrow their dolly.  It was one of the ones where you can switch it from being upright to it being one where the handle moves so it can be almost like a rolling cart -- which was PERFECT for getting our stuff out.  See, I had taken most of the hidey houses, flipped them over, and put our other for-sale things in them, and stuffed them inside the chin cage, to help save room in the back.  So... that cage weighed a freakin ton.  Without the dolly, it would have taken two strong people (i.e. not me and my mom -- me and someone, but with her knees she wouldn't have been able to) to carry that from our parking lot to our spot in the building.  Well, with the dolly as a rolling cart, we were able to easily bring that in, and everything else.  Thanked the lady to death.

Got our tables and chairs situated... after trying several different configurations, until we finally settled on what we have now, which is a U-shape.  Got the banner up there -- the new fabric one that I paid like $60-70 for, it looks nice.  I brought twine to tie it up to the curtain things that separate the booth, but with the way the drapings were, I could only tie the two ends, not the middle, so it was hanging in a weird way.  Well, we saw that other exhibitors were using these hook things to hook into the grommet on their sign and hook it over the rod that was holding the draping.  I had a paperclip.  So, I made a makeshift hook, and it looks much better now.

So, once we got that, got all the tables covered in table cloths and the table skirts, and started lining things up.  And then realized, didn't like where certain things were, so moved the hidey houses and the chinny mobiles and chinny motorhomes to the back table.  Then the cage, the promotional materials (our product book, business cards, chin care packets) went next to that, and hammocks next to that. 

So the last table was the bagged goodies like the rosebuds, rosehips, goodie bags, hanging toys, and so on.  And our donations box. 

So we still actually had room left on one of the tables.  We took two tables, knowing we were going to be provided with one... well, the one they provided was like a 9' table.  Uh... nice that it was bigger, but that left us with spare room so we went out to Party City and got two more of those clear trays so that we could add more stuff to the tables and have it still look nice.  Also got this little placecard holder thing to help prop up our hammocks sign, as we forgot to make one on the computer and had to do one last minute.

But... then once we were over with setting up and checked in at the hotel, found out that there's a printer downstairs that we can use.  So I'm currently whipping up some extra signs to print in the morning.

As it never fails, the second I leave town, the phone rings nonstop.  Already had several calls.  Got one from someone who said she emailed me about two weeks ago... I apparently never got it.  She wanted a shipping quote, so I wrote down the items she wanted and I told her I'd get back to her when I get back to town.  Got several calls asking about chins, and a few people wanting to pick up supplies... which, unless they're going to show up at the expo... just isn't happening this weekend.

So, for us to get in for the weekend, we got some silicone bracelets.   Cause I know the pics aren't the greatest, one side says www.ChicagoPetShow.com and the other says I SUPPORT PET RESCUES.  So that's how me and mom get in for the next two days.

And we have Spice and Kandie here with us.

Kandie - 1 yr old dark ebony female

Spice - 3 yr old dark tan female

Will get pics of our setup and all of that in the morning.  Forgot today. 

Here's hoping we educate a lot of people about chin care and have some product sales tomorrow and Sunday so I don't have to re-pack up all this stuff!  Here's hoping for two good days.