Question for anyone who has done a bridal show/expo before.....how much should I be prepared to spend? Its going to cost me $300 for my booth. I want to maybe make 2 dummy wedding cakes, and take a few hundred samples of mini cupcakes. Im concerned with how much it will cost to decorate the booth (I have an image in my head of what i want but that image comes with an expensive price tag hehe) I know I have to set a budget aside from the $300 booth fee, and Im sure everyones is different, but if you dont mind sharing how much it costs you for your first expo and any tips, so I can get an idea. Its my first one so Im lost. I have no idea of what to bring, etc. Please Help!

I can tell you about the wedding show I helped at when I worked at a very small custom bakery. We took two large dummy cakes, a few cakeballs in covered glass pedestals for decor, examples from several sheet cakes, vanilla and chocolate for tasting (plus the plates, cutlery and napkins), several of the photo albums with photos of cakes the bakery had produced, a calendar (to mark those that might want to set up a tasting appointment), custom designed flyers to pass out to people.

She didn't put a whole lot of money into it. She already had the dummy cakes at the shop. Our area looked very nice, We added some lace tablecloths over some of the area to dress up the tables a bit more.
Her costs were primarily in the tasting cakes and the pamphlet...and honestly I designed the take-away with color photos and everything and the cost wasn't that much.

You can put as much or as little as you want into it. You have to decide whether the cost of what ever you do will be made up in orders and bookings. I can tell you we had some, but not a ton of success. We had a line of people waiting for cake and coming back for seconds, a LOT of compliments and ooo's and ahh's but it didn't really pan out to anything more than just getting our name out there. We secured one groom's cake and a couple of tasting appointments. There were more than a dozen bakers at this show PLUS there was a whole other wedding show going on across town at the same time! I think doing them is important...it's just up to you as to how involved you want to get and what you expect to get out of it!

I never put much $$ into actually decorating the booth. It came w/blue draping/curtains and I just filled it w/dummy cakes, pictures, samples etc. Make a large sign w/you name & phone # (address?); take extra small sturdy boxes or such to change the level of your display cakes which you will cover w/a tablecloth.

I guess I'm in the minority. I spend booko-bucks on my shows. I only now do one or two per year, and have a TON of success with them. I just finished with one yesterday and I probably spent $1200 once it was all said and done. I do linens, shelves, 12 dummies, candles, brochures, business cards, price lists, and then of course 6 flavors, each piece in it's own lidded sample cup. (3000 of them for yesterday!)

But of course then I'm type-A and MUST be the best at the show. It works, I never do any other advertising, and have already booked 4 since yesterday, with a list of 40 people I still need to touch base with.

.......probably spent $1200 once it was all said and done. I do linens, shelves, 12 dummies, candles, brochures, business cards, price lists, and then of course 6 flavors, each piece in it's own lidded sample cup. (3000 of them for yesterday!).....

O.k.; if one is including brochures, cards, price list/handouts then yes, I can see the $$ spent. I just was envisioning actually 'decorating the booth' - not including the cost of handouts, samples of cake (& most, if not all HD s require them to be in lidded cups these days!) Making sample cakes, cupping them; supplying fork; nampkins; paper handouts etc, certainly ups the $$ invested!