Whether you’re hosting an outdoor music festival, food market, or trade show — it’s always better when vendors are involved.
But how do you strategically set up your vendors to maximize impact?
And how do you find the right vendors to collaborate with and ensure a good partnership?
At Eventbrite, we’ve helped all types of outdoor events thrive, from local fairs to multi-day music festivals, so we know how to make your vendor booths shine.
In this article, we’ll highlight some of the best outdoor vendor booth ideas we’ve seen, provide actionable tips on how to optimize vendor spaces, and share insights so you’ll know exactly what works.
Skip to your favorite vendor booth ideas
Booth design ideas for all event types
Vendor booth ideas for music events
Outdoor craft fair booth ideas
Food vendor booth ideas (for any event)
Outdoor market vendor booth ideas
Booth layout ideas for your outdoor venue
Ideas to successfully host vendors at your next outdoor event
Booth design ideas for all event types
When planning your outdoor vendor booth ideas, the first place to start is with the decor. Here are nine decor areas to consider, plus creative ideas for each.
1. Ensure booths are functional
Prioritize functionality and ensure your booth is easily accessible for customers and practical for quick setup and teardown.
Focus on equipping each booth with these essentials:
- Clear entry and exit points
- Portable heaters or fans
- Fold-up ramps
For instance, food vendors at Angel City Market use booths fully covered by mesh with a small opening to hand out food. This helps prevent contamination and keep their station sanitary.
💡Pro Tip: Make sure booths are easily accessible to all attendees by incorporating interactive elements, like touchscreen display tablets to showcase product catalogs.
2. Provide product samples for guests
Samples are crucial to vendor booths. Whether it’s food, drinks, or beauty items, it’s important for sample stations to be fun and accessible.
We suggest:
- Setting up sample plates that automatically rotate to save room
- Providing a free gift sample when attendees spend a certain amount
- Offering personalized sample packs that attendees can customize based on their preferences
💡Pro Tip: Turn the sampling experience into a game where customers can spin a wheel to receive free samples.
3. Get creative with your tabletop display
The tabletop display should be organized in an eye-catching, yet logical way. For example, Streets of Vintage Flea Market uses fluffy rugs on its tabletop display to add tactile texture and visual interest to its booths.
For optimal functionality (and creativity), you can make:
- Funky labels that present product features, benefits, and pricing
- QR codes that visitors can scan to access more information or special offers
- A visual hierarchy by putting the most important items at eye level
💡Pro Tip: If you’re hosting an event at night, consider using fairy lights or lanterns as your booth walls to add a touch of whimsy to your event.
4. Make sure you weather-proof your booths
Think about weather conditions and prepare to make sure you’re ready for the worst-case scenario.
Here are a few tips:
- Provide a tarp to quickly cover up items if it suddenly starts raining
- Use clips and clamps to secure loose items to tables to stop them being blown away in the wind
- Use interlocking foam or rubber mats to create a dry, non-slip surface for booth staff and attendees
💡Pro Tip: Set up your booth on a slight slope (if possible) to allow water to drain away from the area, and use sandbags around the perimeter of your booth to redirect water flow to designated drainage areas and prevent flooding.
5. Display custom design posters and banners
Size and placement matter when it comes to custom posters and banners. Make sure each piece effectively showcases your brand or event theme.
Some unique custom design ideas include:
- Neon lights displays
- Glow-in-the-dark posters
- Balloon letters spelling out your brand name
💡Pro Tip: Turn your marketing materials into inflatable toys that attendees can take pictures with to upload to their social media.
6. Optimize floor space
When planning your event, you want attendees to be able to stop and explore without feeling cramped or pressured to move on quickly.
To optimize your floor space:
- Include seats for customers to eat food and rest
- Opt for comfortable flooring materials, such as foam tiles
- Avoid placing items on the floor to restrict space
💡Pro Tip: Use the floor as an opportunity for additional branding with personalized tiles, encouraging attendees to take pictures and upload to their social media.
7. Choose a color scheme
Choose a color scheme that aligns with your event theme to help build a cohesive vibe for your attendees. For instance, use soft hues for relaxed events or bolder shades for events that are more flamboyant.
Integrate your chosen color scheme into areas, like:
- Tablecloths
- Napkins and cutlery
- Eye-catching signage
💡Pro Tip: For festivals, provide attendees with the option to have their faces painted in your event’s color scheme.
8. Use lighting effects
When choosing your lighting effects, balance two key considerations: providing visibility to attendees and enhancing your event’s atmosphere.
Popular lighting effects include:
- Motion-sensor lights
- LED color-changing lights
- Projection mapping displays
💡Pro Tip: Direct the light toward your products to encourage attendees’ attention to them.
9. Make payment easy
When you’re designing your ‘payment stations,’ aim to create the most hassle-free transaction experience possible to encourage more attendee spending.
You can do this by:
- Offering contactless payment options such as ‘tap and go’ mobile payments
- Ensuring your dedicated payment area is well-lit and stands out from the rest of the booth
- Implementing a digital receipt option to minimize paper waste and provide convenience to customers
💡Pro Tip: Place signage around your payment area to clearly communicate accepted payment methods and any special offers.
Now that you know the nine essential considerations when designing your vendor booth, let’s explore some unique outdoor vendor booth ideas for different types of events.
Vendor booth ideas for music events
Music events are a circus for the senses, with loud music and crazy visuals. So to really get attendees excited about what’s on offer, you have to put some thought behind your booth design.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
10. Get creative with your booth
Instead of using tents, source a venue with unconventional structures and turn them into unique vendor booth ideas. For instance, MVEMNT hosted its That 2000’s Party in the Bullpen and used shipping containers as food and drink vendor booths.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Deck out your unconventional booth of choice with fluffy rugs and a beanbag lounge area, invite a wellness vendor, such as a kombucha stall, and set up a ‘contain-the-hangover’ station for those who need a little pick-me-up.
11. Put the booths near the action
Don’t section off separate areas for your vendor booths — put them right in the middle of the action. For instance, SoufulofNoise places booths right next to the stage at their music events so attendees can browse without missing any of their favorite performances.
⛺Creative vendor idea: If you’re having multiple performances, we recommend including a designated route for attendees to follow to avoid everyone walking in different directions.
Outdoor craft fair booth ideas
For craft fairs to really make an impact, you’ll need to go all in with bold choices, experiment with color, and lean into your creative side.
Here are some inspiring examples that’ll give you a better idea of what we mean.
12. Jazz up your seating
Encourage vendors to experiment with the shape, color, and texture of the seating outside of their booth, and include a theme for your communal ‘rest stop’ areas. For instance, Renegade Craft used pink tablecloths to make their tables look like cotton candy.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Source eclectic second-hand couches and armchairs, and set up a ‘rest stop’ booth that feels like a cozy living room from the 1940’s.
13. Use funky furniture
Repurpose quirky furniture to create a distinctive vendor booth for your event, or take any random item and turn it into your star furniture piece! For instance, The Venice Fest used a weathered truck to sell tie-dyed clothing. This unique setup added a super cool ‘1970s-peace-and-love’ vibe to their event.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Take inspiration from the Burgher Chair and build a booth that highlights the main theme of your event. For instance, if you’re hosting a country music festival, put a giant cowboy hat on top of your booth.
Food vendor booth ideas (for any event)
Between 2018 and 2023, there were approximately 47,033 food truck businesses in the US. Who can resist the tempting smells of street food at an event? When it comes to food vendor booth ideas, keep it simple and let the food do the talking. Here are a couple of ideas for excellent food vendor setups.
14. Stick to a food theme
Ensure a consistent food theme runs throughout products and samples. For instance, at Texas Festival and Events‘ Tulsa Margarita Festival, flowers were a recurring theme, with different vendors using them creatively as drink garnishes, in their attire, and as welcoming giveaway items.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Offer a ‘poolside’ dining booth that combines the laid-back energy of a floating bar with the playful fun of a ball pit. Provide floating flamingo seats and ‘poolside’ tables.
15. Set up a designated dining spot
To make the dining experience more relaxed and enjoyable, create a ‘food and drink’ booth or a dining area with tables and chairs that attendees can use to enjoy the food they’ve bought.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Borrow Mama Night Market’s concept and set up long shared tables, lanterns, heaters, and projectors to transport diners to another region as they eat.
Outdoor market vendor booth ideas
Outdoor market vendors thrive on standing out and being distinct from their neighbors. So we recommend focusing on branding and utilizing the outdoor space.
16. Use natural materials
Lean into the outdoors by decking out your booth with plants and natural materials. Finder’s Keeper’s Vintage Market created a booth using wood crates and rustic decor to capture an earthy feel that perfectly suited the ‘recycled’ theme of their event.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Set up a station where attendees can collect free coffee grounds and compostable materials from your event to use in their gardens.
17. Create bold billboards
For really large crowds, consider placing massive billboards at the top of each vendor booth to make them easy to spot. For example, 626 Night Market uses bold billboards to showcase each vendor’s food offerings and help attendees identify their favorite eats from a distance.
⛺Creative vendor idea: Use digital screens to play videos or animations and encourage vendors to create weird graphics — like the ones you see at a bowling alley, to make their booth stand out.
Now that we’ve explored creative vendor booth ideas, it’s time to consider effective booth layout ideas.
Booth layout ideas for your outdoor venue
Booth layout is crucial for two main reasons:
1. It enhances the attendee experience: The arrangement of booths influences how attendees interact with vendors and navigate through your event.
2. It optimizes revenue: Priority placement allows you to charge vendors more for prime locations, such as near entrances or high-traffic areas.
Here are three booth layout ideas that consider both the attendee experience and priority placement.
18. Straight-down-the-line booth layout
For this booth layout design, vendors should be arranged in a straight line down both sides of your venue, with a clear aisle down the middle. This creates a one-way traffic system where attendees enter, move down one side of the aisle, and then exit to the next side to repeat the browsing process.
This layout is ideal for events where you want to ensure a clear and organized path for browsing — such as outdoor clothing markets or exhibitions — while also accommodating a high amount of attendee movement.
19. L- or U-shaped booth layout
For this booth layout design, vendors are arranged in either an ‘L’ or ‘U’ shape, creating a semi-enclosed area that encourages attendees to browse around the perimeter of the venue.
This layout works well for events such as food festivals, wine tastings, or art shows because it gives attendees enough space to explore but also the freedom to stop and linger for a while without causing a traffic jam.
20. Mix it up booth layout
This design scatters vendor booths in a spontaneous pattern across your venue, rather than placing them in a straight line.
It’s ideal for events like craft fairs, music festivals, or flea markets, where you want to encourage attendees to ‘organically’ discover vendors in unexpected places and add an element of adventure and surprise to your event.
Planning for an outdoor event isn’t just about the vendor booth ideas or even your booth layout; it’s about being a ‘top-tier’ vendor host.
Ideas to successfully host vendors at your next outdoor event
When it comes to hosting vendors, it’s best to be over-prepared. Need a cable charger for your phone? Got it. Need another tent stake? Packed three.
Use these four strategies to help get hyper-organized.
21. Look for the right vendors for your target audience
You can use data from past events to analyze trends in ticket registration numbers, audience demographics, and at-the-door ticket sales and try to match your booths with these trends.
For example, certain event types might attract a younger demographic so you’ll want to investigate what types of booths are more likely to resonate with them compared to an event with an older demographic.
Discover data-driven insights
22. Maintain strong communication
Establish clear lines of communication from the moment you start working with a vendor. That means sending out an initial email outlining detailed plans and providing timely event updates.
It also means setting up clear points of contact on event day so vendors know where to go if they have any concerns or need assistance and sending a ‘performance summary’ email when your event ends.
23. Lock in the legalities
Make sure you understand the legal requirements of hosting specific vendors before locking yourself into a contract.
For instance, if you plan to host a wine-tasting vendor, conduct thorough research to ensure that you can legally offer alcohol at your event venue. This includes understanding state and local alcohol licensing laws and any specific permits required for serving alcohol to attendees.
24. Gather the right equipment
Using a pre-made survey, ask vendors directly about any special tech needs or equipment requirements. Before the event, create a checklist of ‘special’ and ‘essential’ items, prioritizing essential items like power outlets in one column and special items in another.
Use this information to inform the equipment placement in your layout plan. For instance, if a vendor needs a dedicated power outlet and ample space for ventilation, position their setup at the back of your venue rather than near the entrance.
Select the right outdoor vendor booth ideas for your event
Choosing and designing vendor booths to compliment your event’s vibe is no small feat. You have to consider what your target audience wants to see, and the unique requirements of each of the vendors you’re working with.
That’s why it’s important to start planning early and stay organized. At Eventbrite, we can help you manage all your event management tasks, from ticket registrations to check-ins to attendance numbers.
