Interesting idea. I must admit, I'm not involved in the area that you are looking to go into, but I do think that I can offer some generic business help for you getting started.
My website, http://www.inafishbowl.com features 3 businesses in their start-up phase. It follows them through blogs, videos and Twitter updates so that people like yourself can watch their experiences and learn from them. Take a look - I think it might provide some really useful ideas for you.
In particular, look at Fishbowl 3. They are a clothing business, having to deal with selling their clothes online and all the problems associated. They recently held a promotional event to get people to look at their goods and feel the quality, and they have a blog post entitled "Lessons learned from promo event" which outlines how they went about organising the event and the lessons they learned. Might be a nice place for you to start.
