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    • Jan 18

BEAM – How To Plan and Run A Lampshade Workshop

Looking for a new way to attract customer to your craft or retail shop, or to raise the profile of your lampshade making brand? Planning and running a lampshade making workshop might be the answer you're looking for!


Alongside offering you the opportunity to share your skills, running a lampshade making workshop provides a unique experience for your customer, meaning your small business stands out from the crowd. In this BEAM post we outline everything you need to know to get you started including our customised workshop packs and FREE workshop teaching notes.



Main image credit: alisonbick.co.uk


1.  Define your objectives

Before beginning to think about hosting either a workshop in your retail shop, or a workshop within your town, village or community, it’s important to consider what the benefits would be to your business.


To help you focus on your aims we created the following question to ask yourself…


  • How will running a lampshade workshop help me draw attention to my handmade lampshade business or my retail products?

  • How can I boost sales and build brand loyalty from running a lampshade workshop?

  • How can a lampshade workshop help me educate my customers?

  • How will running a lampshade workshop help me build a sense of community?



2. Plan the logistics

Essential to running a successful lampshade making workshop is the logistics and considering what will work for both you and your customer.

 

Timing – Consider when your customer will be free – weekends and evening are often the best times, yet this doesn’t stop you from running longer workshops, or courses such as soft lampshade making, at a regular daily time slot over a period of weeks.

 

Location – If you have a retail space it makes sense to hold your lampshades making workshop in your shop, to draw customers in, highlighting your range of products, lampshade making or otherwise. A dedicated space is ideal, and if this is within your retail shop it can often draw interest from other customers. On the converse a separate space can work too, just ensure you have clear signage for students and to pique the interest of others who visit the shop.


If you don’t have retail space, then consider if your chosen venue is it easy to get too? Does it have good parking and transport links. Also ensure you consider disabled access

 

Space – does it have good lighting or natural light? Is the space big enough – for every lampshade making student you’ll need a 1 metre table? Is the venue heated? There’s nothing worse than the cold limiting customers creativity!

 

Price – needless to say that the price of your workshop needs to cover your overheads, materials and your time, but the price may be dependent on your initial aims for the workshop. For example, if you are running an in store workshop, you might be happy to just break even on the workshop, based on this being a way of encouraging customers into your shop and introducing them to your range of lampshade making products. With many other lampshades making workshop taking place around the country, it’s also good to do a little research to see what others are charging.



3. Gather supplies

Preparation is key when running any workshop, firstly to ensure you can focus on teaching your students to make lampshades and run to time and secondly so your student can enjoy the experience.

 

Materials - Our Lampshade Workshop Packs support you to run engaging and creative lampshade making workshops, at a low cost and include everything your students need to make a number of shade dependent on your chosen diameter.


  • flat packed lampshade PVC panels

  • lampshade rings

  • double sided Tesa tape

  • rolled edge tools and a brilliant

  • step by step instruction sheet for every student

 

Available in 20cm (50 shade pack), 30cm (30 shade pack) and 40cm (30 shade pack), and now the double-sided PVC lampshade packs in 20cm (50 shade pack) and 30cm (30 shade pack), our Workshop Packs make sure there are plenty of options to meet your customer’s needs.

 


For those lampshade makers with a retail shop, our Workshop Starter Pack has been created with craft or fabric retailers in mind, to help boost business revenue, by primarily teaching students how to make their own lampshades, but with Lampshade Making Kits to sell to student after the workshop! Containing 24 individually boxed Lampshade Making Kits, your students can take home a kit, putting their lampshade making skills to immediate use.

 

In addition, our Workshop Starter Pack is great value for money, with 20% off the combined price of a Workshop Pack and Trade Pack, making this an excellent purchase to enhance your secondary income stream!



Tools

Each student will need the following:


  • a pair of fabric scissors or craft knife

  • an optional extra pair of scissors per person for cutting tape

  • access irons and and ironing boards to ensure fabrics are well pressed

  • Masking tape can also be useful to help students position the Lampshade PVC panel on their fabric accurately.  

 



4. Planning and Structuring Your Workshop

Ensuring your workshop runs to time, delivers everything you say is essential, therefore practising your workshop with a friend, allowing time for multiple students (and questions!) and making notes of each stage of the teaching, can really help.

 

Having teaching notes handy can really help you focus, stick with the format to not go astray during the workshop. Our lampshade demonstrator, Sam, swears by using teaching notes for either face to face group workshops, Dannells YouTube videos or our Virtual Lampshade Making Workshops, and we’ve added Sam’s teaching notes for making a 30cm Drum lampshade kit below as a FREE download.





5. Promoting your Lampshade Making Workshop

Promotion is key to filling your lampshade making workshops and making it a worthwhile business model, particularly if your running an in store workshop. Starting marketing to your current customer base makes sense, so use your regular newsletter, social media platforms and your website to advertise, giving your customers enough notice to be able to plan the date into their diaries.

 

Keep your messaging clear; tell the customer the benefits of learning to make their own lampshade; matching their personal interior style, unique to them, cost effective and skill building, and where possible set up a mini shoot of friend making lampshades to use as visual promotion, so customer can imagine themselves doing the same!

 

Dannells have plenty of resources to help you promote your lampshade making workshop too – check out our Workshop Directory . Available to anyone who run lampshade making workshops you can advertise with us for FREE to wannabee lampshades makers, here.







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