You know when you go to street fair, farmers market or festival and you see someone with the most aesthetic booth built into their 10x10 market tent? I have always been drawn to booths like that, so I decided to create my own. For the past 2 years, I have been selected as a vendor in the Peter Anderson Arts Festival in Ocean Springs, MS as a wood artist. My first year, I didn’t spend too much time on my booth because I needed to focus on my inventory and see how my pieces sell and do some configuring with how to display large pieces. By the time year 2 rolled around, I had envisioned what I needed to make it happen. A few things to keep in mind were low budget, packability for storage in my garage/workshop, AND most importantly, being able to fit them in my SUV along with all of my other market items to transport to markets. Here is what I came up with and a few step by steps of the process. If you’re more of a visual person, checkout my playlist on TikTok called “DIY Vendor Display” to see the process.

Supplies

Plywood (I used 1/2 in birch)
Dowels (I cut down wooden clothing rods)
Zip ties
Wooden rounds to cut in half for feet for the stand alone panels
Hinges
Sand Paper
Paint, stain, clear coast sealer (optional)

Tools

Circular saw or table saw to rip the plywood down to size
Jigsaw to round the corner and cut shelving grooves
Drill
Drill bits including 1 inch wood boring spade bit (like this)
Miter saw is optional to cut the dowels down, or you can use the jigsaw
Sander or sanding block

Tent/Canopy

HERE is the tent I have since so many people have asked for it. I cannot say enough good things about this one. I have gone through MANY canopies and tents throughout the past 15 years and this is by far the best one I’ve had. Trust me, spend the extra money now, save tons of money in the long run not having to replace it. I bought mine summer of 2021 and its gone through several markets, storms, camping, etc. It’s easy to open and close, doesn’t pinch you, sturdy, comes with walls for rain and shade, and it’s very easy to get back into its heavy duty roller bag. FUN FACT: I was recently camping in Georgia with my family, we had three canopies up, including mine, and it stormed throughout the night. The ONLY tent still standing was mine :) The others unfortunately crumpled, including our sleeping tent.

Check out my easy to shop Amazon List of tools and supplies specific to this project!

Step By Step How To:

Corner Panels:

You can make as many of these as you want. I did a set of panels for all four corners of my tent to maximize space. You’ll need 1 4x8’ sheet of plywood for each corner. I’ll walk you through one panel and you can repeat however many times you like.
Measure and cut your plywood to fit your needs. I started by measuring my 4x8’ sheet to 70 inches, cutting 26 inches off the end. And then I ripped the remaining larger piece in half. Keep in mind the height of your canopy. 70 inches was the perfect height for the panels to touch the bottom of the canopy cover at the middle height setting of the tent.
Now you have two 24x70 inch pieces of plywood. Pick which sides you want the top to be, and using a bowl or something round as a stencil, draw a curves edge on one corner of each. Make it so they mirror each other so that the insides and the outsides match the wood grain. Use a jigsaw to follow your stencil line to round the edge out.
Now you have two panels with a mirrored rounded edge on one side of the top. You will want to lay them side by side and attach your hinges.
Now that the hinges are attached, close the two panels together so they are flat. Draw out your grid to know where to drill the dowel holes. I used a scrap piece of wood and created a stencil so that I could use it on each panel and they’d all match up. You can also add your shelf line if you want to add shelves. Make sure you give yourself space between your shelve and your dowel holes based on what you will be displaying on them.
Using a drill bit that matches the size of your dowels, drill halfway through each hole. I only drilled far enough down to pierce the second panel underneath it, and then flipped everything and continued drilling the other way. This allowed me to make sure all of my holes were lined up and it produced less tear out and splintering.
If you are adding shelves - use a jigsaw to cut out your shelf groove. You can use your spare plywood to cut the shelves out.
Fold your panels together again. Using a big enough drill bit for a zip tie to slip through, drill a hole in the top, middle and bottom of the hinged edge. About 1 inch in from the edge and a few inches from the top and bottom. This will give you a place to run your zip ties through to attach to the tent.
Sand all of your raw edges using a sander or sanding block, or just sand paper. Be very careful not to use too much pressure and sand away the top layer of the plywood. I rolled a piece of sand paper the sand the inside of the holes.
Paint, stain or clear coat your panels. I only used a clear coat keeping them the natural color. At minimum, you want to clear coat them to help protect from damage and rain.
Cut your dowels to your preferred length. I cut some at 6 inches and some at 8 inches for different placements. You can also use a jigsaw to cut a little groove into the ends of your dowels to prevent items from sliding off. I also used hair claw clips to keep my lightweight bags from flying off in the wind.

Setting Up:

Setting up the panels should be pretty easy. You can either put the panels on the outside of the tent pole or on the inside of the tent pole. Wrapping the panels on the outside provides more support, however, we noticed it was harder to zip our walls up when we had a rain storm come through. If you have nice weather, I suggest putting them on the outside of the poles. Run your zip ties through the holes you created and around the poles and pull tight, making sure the panels are sitting at a 90 degree angle on even ground. We had to zip two zip ties together to get the length, or buy longer zip ties. If you run into uneven ground and the panels are swinging a bit, you can place a shim under it to lock it in place. The market that I do is in the street, so we aren’t able to stake our tents down. Our solution was to hang 25 lb plate weights on each corner with a thin toe strap. This method worked beautifully, even through a heavy storm. It wasn’t as appealing to the eye, so next time I will try to disguise the weights a little bit better. Also, keep in mind that if you have weather and need to put your walls up, you’ll want to move your inventory inside the booth and pull the dowels in towards the center so the walls can fit properly.

Stand Alone Panels:

I made these using the scraps I cut off from the corner panels.
Do the same process. Cut them to size, round the corners, drills holes, sand, clear coat.
For the base - I cut wooden rounds I bought at Lowes in half and then cut a slit into the middle of the rounded side. I matched the slit on the bottom of the panels giving them space to lock together. I painted my “feet” black just for the aesthetic of it and also for people to see them and not accidentally trip.

Display Signs:

I made my display signs cutting PVC and adding an elbow. And then I added an end cap so the sign would slide off. I spray painted the PVC black and used zip ties to hold it to the corners of the booth. I then used zip ties to hang my wooden sign the frame.