Hey everyone! I'm considering being a vendor at the Ozark CBG festival (yeah, I know, it's just a couple of weeks away) and need some advice from anyone who has sold at an outdoor event like this.
I'll be in a 10x10 pop-up canopy and need a good way to display guitars and ukes. I built a display rack for indoor shows, but not confident in it on uneven ground. I'll have 3-4 ukes, Probably 5 CBGs and 3-4 license plate guitars. Maybe a couple of 2x4 lap steels too (not worried about them).
I'll be driving 2.5 hours away from home, so it all has to fit in my minivan.
Any thoughts?
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what did you decide to do?
carry a few scrap squares of plywood to put under each corner of the display stand to prevent it sinking into soft ground, and a few scraps of 1-by and 2-by lumber to shim up a low side.
screw some D-rings or eye bolts onto your display frame in out-of-the-way spots so you can tie on some sandbags, free-weights, cheap ankle/wrist exercise weights, chunks of 6x6, cinderblocks, something to weight it down against wind and clumsy customers.
bring a roll of chicken wire , wrap the back" wall" or all "walls" , and you can hang em anywhere with a jute loop .
Hal, I have several display racks (home-built). One similar to yours, a PVC pipe rack (discussed by many in this forum last year), and several regular guitar stands. Outdoors, I erect my pop up, and hang gits around the two sides with bungee cords, wrapped around the tent frame, hooks around two tuning keys. Free real estate, and easily displays 8-10 gits up high, at eye level. Bungee cords take up no storage space, too. I think this is a good addition to my display racks outdoors. Hope this might help.
Thanks for the input! Here's a pic of my existing display. It works fine indoors, but kinda worried about how it will perform outdoors. Leveling it would probably be easy. Just need to find a way to really secure the instruments in case of wind. As you can see, they're just sitting on conduit.
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Invest in a couple of good trestle tables, you can easily chock them up with some scraps of plywood if necessary, and set up your racks and merch. on them. Make sure you have a card reader to take payments with your smartphone - your first sale will cover the outlay.
Always have a way to anchor your canopy. Even if it's not windy people bump into them.
Anything that will work inside will work outside too. If the ground is uneven you can build up one side with short pieces of lumber or simply drive one side into the ground a little to level things out. don't over think it just get it done. Good luck.