What was your most challenging booth set up?

[ComfyPetPads]

Mine is about to come on April 24th. I'm doing the Colorado Springs Pet Expo and the standard 10x10 booth. I normally have 34ft of grid wall when I set up in a 10x10. This time I'll only be able to use 12', possibly 16' if I can do 4' sides on the backend. This show requires that that the sides be open for the first 8 feet. Yikes!! I also use 4 tables. I hang most my pads according to size on the grid wall for display. I guess what I'll do is stack them on the tables and change things up a bit. I wont' have beds with me this time around so that'll give me lots more room.

Here's my normal 10x10 set up for the most part (some things have changed).
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d6/c9/4c/d6c94c69e36caa8422deb7e7007fc07e.jpg

This was a 12x12 spot I had recently. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/463518986624596600/

So what was your most challenging booth set up?

[Plantcycled]

Mine hands down was a first time (and last time) show I did in Salem, MA. I had a spot on Derby square, which is a small space near the town hall that is nice and open and a street over from the more expensive spot. My helper had called out that day so I was by myself.

Well, when I got there we were just supposed to pull up to the curb unload our car on the curb and move it to our spot, but they had decided to move the spots all the way up the cobblestone hill, around the town hall and down a dark, narrow ally since their were not a lot of vendors and they thought it would be best to put us closer to the popular street.

So I had to haul all of my stuff on my tiny little cart a half mile up the cobblestone hill. Which ended up to be about 10 trips! Then I had to put my canopy up by myself, which is a two person jobs and my Coleman 'EZ Up' is not a one person setup canopy like the real EZ Ups. Thankfully my neighbor helped me out after watching me struggle with my canopy for over 10 minutes.

Tear down was just as stressful. Did I mention that going downhill with a small cart overloaded with stuff is more difficult than going uphill? Everything was trying to fall off my cart as the walkway was full of holes and bumps. I was exhausted after the show and honestly pissed off. I just made my booth fee back.

Worst show ever! I even gave up my $150 for the second show I signed up for and didnt go back, nor will I ever again.

[RedThreadBows]

I do a show in the fall that begins early in the am. There is no security the night before so you cannot leave anything. I arrived before the sun came up to have enough time to set everything up only to find that it was pitch black in the field. Couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I couldn't even find my spot, since they had marked the ground and it was too dark to see those marks.

In about 45 minutes, the sun came up enough to find my spot and get the tent up. It was frantic rush to get my booth set up in time. I don't do that show any more and one of the reasons is the timing and the darkness!

[TalismanToo]

Red Thread - If you have early set up in future - use a headlamp like a person who is camping would. I live sans electricity, and once the lights go out(yes, the sun in my light!), the headlamp goes on for task work.

My most difficult was several years ago when I had a neighbor who was infringing on my space during set up time. I had hair accessories which I could place on two tables and have room to spare in my 10 x 10 space, and the neighbor tried to take advantage and edge their tables over. Had they asked, I may have been amenable, but they tried to be so sneaky about it, acting as if they weren't aware what they were doing. Kept "readjusting" their tables, creeping closer, closer, closer, until I cleared my throat and said "Did you realize that you had moved your booth to include part of mine?

[ComfyPetPads]

Ashley, I can't imagine having to cart up all the way up a cobblestone hill, let alone by myself. Yikes!

I've done a couple of shows where set up was in the darkness of the morning hours. It wasn't fun and to boot it was 35 degrees outside and raining which it later snowed on us a bit. Too freckin' cold and the show was a flop.

[ComfyPetPads]

Terri, that's totally uncool of your booth neighbor to do that. I'm all for sharing extra space too (heck I even let others hang stuff on the backside of my grid wall, but all vendors have always asked first. Way uncool.

[PrairiePrimitives]

My most challenging booth was the one I refer to as the "Incredible Shrinking Booth." When I applied for the show, the booths were 10x10 or 8x10, a decent size, at any rate, and the show was indoors so I didn't have to worry about a canopy fitting the space.

The show promoter emailed exhibitors a couple times each week with various "updates." I quickly realized that one of the updates was that the booths were getting smaller. HEY, WAIT A SECOND! By the time the day of the show rolled around, the spaces were big enough for the 8 foot table they were furnishing and about 4 feet deep. They had over-booked the show and decided the solution was to make the booths smaller so they could fit everyone in. No, we didn't get a refund of a proportionate amount of the booth fee. To the best of my knowledge, they never held the show again, nor would I do it again!

[KimagineDesigns]

Tana, I remember you posting about that after it happened!

My worst was a little street festival in South Philadelphia. They closed off the street and didn't allow you to drop off your stuff - we had to park in an Acme parking lot 2 blocks away and schlep our stuff to our space.

What made things awful was at the end of the show; the security guy removed the blockage *right* at 4pm, instead of 4:30! There was a traffic jam, honking, and cursing as we all rushed to finish any last-minute sales and get our stuff - and tents - packed up and off the streets! I needed a double shot of whiskey when I got home. :P

Needless to say, I have not done that show again.

[wavejewelry]

I tried selling from one of those Kiosk carts at a hotel resort once. The cart was 5' x 4' with an up right frame running down the middle. After a lot of fiddling around I realized I could stretch a match stick blind over the up right frame and hang my earrings on their hangcards on this blind. Everything else : rings, pendants, anklets, ear wraps etc. I cramed onto the remaining table space. The setup looked good and I settled down with a cup of coffee and waited for the early risers to start coming down from their rooms. Suddenly a big gust of wind came up from behind and blew all of my earrings off the blind and sent me running around after them. This happened several times throughout the day and was so stressful I never went back.

[PrairiePrimitives]

Kim, wow ... I'm impressed that you remember that! That was at least 4 years ago!

[Former_Member]

I have one coming up, that I'm already regretting, due to the fact that, over time it has occurred to me that the promoter doesn't really know how big anybody's space is, etc... it was originally supposed to be 8x10, but she couldn't tell me which way it opened, and now I just found out that no one will know where their space is until they show up, and I will have to do half of my set up the night before (1 1/2hr) and the other half the morning of (1 1/2hr) because I just don't see how she can have all of these people come at "do not arrive before 7!" check in, get their info, and set up??? It takes me ~20-30 minutes just to get my stuff from the car to the space! Dreading it :(
and of course I'm going to still go, because I'm the dumb bunny who signed up for it, and I can't afford to just loose the fee :/

[WhimsyBits]

Mine was my first outdoor show last fall. It was on grass and not very even and thankfully I did a trial run of my setup in my yard beforehand so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. I had to change it up at the last minute because the ground slated a certain way.

[RedThreadBows]

Yvonne- I have found that many organizers have never done a show themselves, or if they have, they often have a basic and simple set up and do not understand a more complicated booth set up.

For my upcoming craft show, I was given a late set up time last year which made it VERY difficult to be ready to open on time. This year when I sent in the application I explained that I work alone and that booth takes time to set up properly. I asked for an earlier time and was granted one of the earliest ones. It is going to be so much easier to get my booth ready this year and I will have time to unload and park and set up without rushing.

Perhaps you could contact them and ask about setting up earlier and explain what it takes to bring your booth together for a show? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

[Former_Member]

Thanks, I will keep that in mind, if it turns out to be one I want to do again :)

[Former_Member]

Our most challenging set up (so far) was our first outdoor show at a Festival last year. We bought a brand new Caravan Canopy with 4 sides to use for outdoor shows. I made a set of weights to hold the canopy down using 4” PVC pipe & concrete, so that took quite a bit of extra time & preparation to plan, purchase materials & then build. We had heard that rain was in the forecast so I also picked up some disposable plastic painters drop sheets when I bought the materials for the PVC weights.

We had an assigned space on the road in front of the town’s Post Office but we wanted to get there early so that we could park in the P.O.’s parking lot if possible. We left our place at 5am & got there at 5:45am & started setting up. We practiced setting up the canopy the day before, just to make sure we knew how everything worked.

Glad that we did that because it started to drizzle a little as Cindy & I were setting up the canopy. I took the plastic painters sheets & put them over the top of the canopy. Although our canopy is listed as “water resistant”, I’m not comfortable unless I see “waterproof”, lol. Also, I’m REAL glad that we put those plastic sheets over the canopy.

We set the canopy up, I hooked up the weights & all 4 sides, set up the tables then started loading in our plastic tubs filled with our soaps & skin care products. By getting there super early, we got a parking space on the P.O. lot, and our SUV was only about 30 feet or so from our canopy. I had a dolly with me but didn’t use it since our SUV was so close to our tent. Just after I brought the last plastic tub into the canopy, it started raining & then it poured & poured & rained, off & on all day long.

So, it was our first outdoor show, our first time setting up a new canopy & then the bad weather added to the mayhem, lol. Crazy enough, it turned out to be our highest $$ grossing show that we’ve done up until that point. I’m convinced that if the weather had been nice & clear, we probably would have done 2x or 3x the sales, but we were very happy with the $, considering all the rain that we got that day. Those festival goers’ are really diehards!

[ComfyPetPads]

I really like seeing all these challenges, helps keep an open mind of what could happen for varying events.

Yvonne, that sounds like a complete nightmare! I can't believe the show organizers won't be giving anyone their booth number before set up. You'll have to be sure to report back on how it went.

[PlaynwithScraps]

Mike and Cindy- how did you attach the plastic sheets so they stayed in place and didn't blow away?

[rocksandsalt]

We always find the small spaces challenging, we generally keep away from the shows that only offer 6' spaces but once in a while we do one and it's always a feat to fit everything in there (including us!) and make it look nice.

Last fall we had signed up for one of these shows and they ended up offering us a 12 x 12 space which worked out great - I was really stressed as I assumed that the only reason they were offering upgrades to 12x12 was because of lack of interest in the show, and I was worried that the organizers maybe thought they were offering 12x6 but said 12x12 by mistake, but it turned out to be good weekend for us.

[Former_Member]

Dawn, here's a pic for reference: https://www.facebook.com/SweetAirSoap/photos/pb.430439667021712.-2207520000.1428965470./769961839736...

I used 2 plastic sheets for the top of the canopy. They're 9 ft wide x 20 ft long. Since the canopy is 10 ft x 10 ft, 1 sheet isn't big enough to cover the entire top so you have to use 2 & overlap them. This gives extra protection for the top of the canopy plus it gives you extra to hang over the front & rear of the canopy.

As you can see by the pic, I overlapped the plastic sheets on top so that about 2 ft hung over the front & back of the canopy, and about 5 feet hung over both sides.

I took the end corners of the sheet where they hung down on the sides, & wrapped them around a leg of the canopy. Then, I used a spring clamp on the inside of the tent to clamp the tied plastic corner to the canopy leg.

I also used white duct tape to tape the edges of the plastic to the white canopy sidewalls. If wind had a chance to get under the plastic, I'd lay down a strip of the white duct tape. If the plastic was near a leg or metal part of the frame, I'd clamp it with a small spring clamp.

It rained & poured all day & then the wind came up in the afternoon, but we were nice & dry thanks to those plastic sheets. I'm sure the Caravan canopy would repel rain, but again, they say it's "water resistant" not "waterproof". I know those plastic sheets are waterproof so they're going on my canopy anytime there's even a speculation about rain.

[Former_Member]

4 x 8 feet wall side, I was prepared for a small setup but not so narrow. I ask for a small space too.

It worked out well tho'. Customers could touch my suspended pendants from the drift wood sculpture display raised to eye level. It actually encouraged me to devise my current setup I use now at shows.

Where I leave the entire middle of my booth open, all my work suspended's from drift wood channels along the side walls of the canopy. Leaving the middle open for wheel chair mobility.

Its good to change things up.

[RedThreadBows]

I did something similar to what Mike and Cindy did. I bought a 20'x14 (I think) tarp and draped it over my canopy. It was enough to cover about half way down each side and a little over front and back (but not much). I used some paracord and stakes to tie it to the ground. It was a horrible day! Poured for 90 minutes straight with lots of wind. I was nice and dry in my canopy though.

[Former_Member]

Had that show I was worried about, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, a lot of the local people set up the night before, and I was able to find the promoter, follow her to my spot ;) unload and everything, really the only problem was that instead of the spot being 8x10 they were all 9x9 sooo I had to turn my middle table sideways so I could get in and out of my booth, and it was funny because the lady set up to my back did not leave any space to get in and out of her booth so she took advantage of mine, which was fine, except for the one time she was scooting through my tiny opening and precariously juggling a very full cup of coffee and sloppy bbq sandwich over my hats!!!!! made me panic a little :/