Decorating Your Show Hall On a Shoestring

Show budgets often come to a halt when it's time to consider decorations. We all know of shows that outdo themselves year after year (Cotton States comes to mind), but most shows do not have a lot of money to allocate to dressing up the show hall.

- Geri Fellerman

Working on shows large and small for over 35 years, I have often been tasked with decorating the show hall. While some shows have larger budgets than others, we focus here on ways of being tasteful yet sparing the piggy bank.

The Show Hall Type Makes a Difference

If you are lucky enough to be able to do a hotel show, your job is likely to be easier. Typically, a hotel will provide cloth covers for the tables in the judging rings; if you are really lucky you might even get a choice of colors because the hotels may have a variety of colors available for weddings and banquets. Some hotels even provide cloth chair covers for the judging ring chairs.

A more basic show hall, which might be a convention center, fairgrounds or sports arena, will have bare-bones tables and chairs that are crying out for at least a plastic tablecloth. And then you will need to come up with a way to make the rings look festive.