I recently had an idea as I was doing my friend a "favor."  Actually, he was doing me a favor but it was a win-win situation for both of us.

He has a business building that is about 80% occupied. There are 2 big spaces that were vacant and because those are 2 large office/retail spaces, the building looked like it was 50% vacant as opposed to 80%.  He was having a hard time attracting future retail tenants.  The amount of traffic the street it sits on gets about 80,000 cars/trucks a day!

He asked me if I would stage the window and I could get a sign up above the windows to give me visibility for my new business.  It was before Christmas so I had elaborate windowscapes ideas, like Macy's in NYC. Then I had to deal with reality of budget, lack of know-how in constructing platforms, and time restrictions.  It ended up being alot simpler than what I had originally planned out, but in the end, it turned out just fine.

People commented how great this was and if I was going to do this as a business service as well.  I had never even thought about it but, maybe on slow days, I could stage windows for small business owners and shops in our local cute lazy towns, like Davidson.  Has anybody else thought of it or better yet, have you staged one?

I wouldn't know how to go about charging because it took me way longer than I thought it would and I don't know if anyone is willing to pay $800+ a window.

Here's a picture of how it turned out - sorry it's such a big picture!  Anyways, give me feedback and let me know if you think this could be a new staging service.  I think this is what visual merchandiser is for but I've never heard of it being called Visual Staging or Window Staging?  I'm making it up as I go along.... ( :