Get ready for some crowd control! Shoppertainment — the fine art of running in-store events and promotions — is the perfect way to differentiate your store from your competition, build a buzz about town, and thrill your customers all at the same time!

Vintage Stores are staples for fashion in their communities, and often attract some of the cities creative types from artists, musicians and designers. Getting your customers involved with your promotions is an easy way to put together an event with minimal effort and great success. Many successful stores have number of different events that they run throughout the year to attract customers from all different walks inside their shops.

Putting together an event can be easy or difficult considering how organized the event planner is. Often employees can easily help with putting together the event, as well as some of the marketing and canvassing that is needed to get the event off of the ground. Most planners plan events 6 months out, but lets get real... aren't you looking for a way to increase sales yesterday. With that being said, you need a minimum of thirty days to market your event successfully using flyer's, radio plugg's, social marketing, event listings or whatever means you plan on using to get word out about your cool event in your cool store.

Don't forget about weekly events on specific days that could increase traffic on that slow Monday afternoon or Thursday morning. A special sale event, or donation day... bring in an old item for a charity and get 15% off an item from the store. Some shops even have mimosa's and coffee for customers on Sunday mornings, this is great way to show them that you appreciate them and get them to hang around your store for a while. Others have record listening parties on wed nights, recycle clothing workshops on Saturday morning, or a clothing swap every second Sunday...I think that you get the point, ,the sky is the limit.

Don't be afraid to think big and plan an event that could help out your neighbors or other shops in the area. Larger events attract larger crowds to your store. If you plan your event correctly often times you can get your neighbors and sponsors to cover the marketing costs to promote the event, while you do the planning and book the acts. Don't forget to think about adding a charity aspect to it either. A clothing or can food drive for a local charity can often attract musicians and artists that you thought would never come out of the woodworks to help out in the event. Don't forget to put together PR packages for each event you do and send them to your local radio stations and news organizations. they are often looking for things to promote and it could surprise you how much free press you can get for your store...I mean event.

QUICK LIST OF EVENT IDEAS

• Anniversary Party
• Concerts
• Art Shows
• Fashion Shows
• Instore Promotions
• Music Listening Parties
• Recycle Clothing Drives

Vintage Clothes can have a multitude of stains as a result of their journey over the years, this does not mean that the garments are no longer good, it just means that is time to buck down and be smarter than the stains. The following are tried and proven techniques to getting some of those common 8 pesky stains out of that one of kind garment.

• Acrylic Paint: Remove acrylic paint from clothes with pine cleaner. Soak, scrub, repeat. Takes some time, but it works. You can also try hairspray. Test a small spot on the item and then spray on hairspray and use your fingernail to remove the paint. Occasionally you have to wash twice.
• Berries: Blot the stain and dip it in cold water. Rub the spot with a cut lemon, rinse, and air dry. Use prewash stain remover and then launder with warm water.
• Blood: An easy and quick way to remove blood is to spray the area with Windex and rub a little. Then just throw it in the wash. You may also use saline solution for contact lenses to remove blood stains. Put paper towel under the fabric and squirt solution onto it. Blot to remove any left over. It draws the blood into the solution and doesn't harm the fabric like hydrogen peroxide may.
• Chocolate: Blot or scrape off the excess chocolate, then flush with club soda. For a tough stain: Sponge with liquid hand soap and ammonia; launder as usual. Or you could try to soak the stained article in milk.
• Grease: Mix Dawn Dish Soap and a little Simple Green into the wash, and launder as usual. Or try Cheese Wiz smeared generously on a grease stain, takes it right out in the laundry.
• Ink: First, put a paper towel or a rag under the stained area to absorb the excess ink. Spray on a non-oily, alcohol based hair spray. Saturate the ink stain with the hairspray. Blot with a rag and repeat until the stain is gone. Apply prewash stain remover and launder as usual. Or you can try milk! Yes, put the piece of cloth into a cup with milk and you'll see it vanishing... then wash or dry clean as usual.
• Lipstick: Get it out by rubbing the stain with a generous amount of petroleum jelly, then wash as usual.Or you could try a non-oily, alcohol based hair spray.
• Ring Around the Collar: Wet the collar with warm water, sprinkle liberally with cream of tartar and rub in well. Launder as usual. or you can soak the collar with an oven cleaner, this works good as well.