Anacortes day 0: Clash of the titans
Aug. 6th, 2015 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrDenise provides the play-by-play for set-up day at the Anacortes Arts Festival.
In Anacortes, the streets don't close to traffic until 6 pm the day before the show. Booths will set up in the street against the east curb, the west curb, and right down the middle, standard size ten by ten feet. We try to be on a side street close to time so we can begin load-in promptly: drive in close to our booth space, get everything out of the van and off the roof, raise the canopy before Frank drives the van offsite to park.
Practice at weekly Saturday Markets helps us with quick unloading. We need any time we've saved to shim and level the display furniture. This is a real street, with almost three inches difference between the front of the booth and the gutter. It looks weird to see the shelf unit shimmed as much as it needs to be level. Hopefully, pots will interrupt the line once everything is out.
Distraction comes when food truck trailers try to park on the east curb south of us. The first fifth-wheel trailer takes forever, but finally manages to park smoothly; the second--with its enormous pick-up pulling--has problems. Too big to simply back and fill around the booths already set up. Thankfully, the show's volunteer crew is able to relocate a booth already set up in the center row to give the food rig a more reasonable angle. Once the pick-up truck is gone, we pause to help our neighbors carry their canopy back into position.
Muscle memory helps us with the familiar unloading of pots--we do this every Saturday, after all. Sometime in the middle, we take a break for sandwiches and fruit. Hands get shaky when we're too hungry--not appreciated around pottery.
After the break, it's time to finish up the remaining load-in boxes, and decide what more needs to be done tonight. Paper items like shelf talkers--small signs with item names and prices--and business cards won't go out until morning. We're near the ocean, and there will be moisture overnight. The sun is getting low behind the buildings, and we're not certain how much help we'll get from streetlights. If we come in an hour early tomorrow, there will be time to put out the extra items there's shelf space for in this 10x10 booth, and rearrange the last few items in the display.
So we stop; we need to be awake enough for the 20-minute drive to Oak Harbor where the motel is. Button up the booth: pull in the restock boxes, move everything away from the gutter (don't want to be surprised by rain), and loop velcro straps from the walls around the canopy legs. Once upon a sale we actually used the corner zippers provided by the manufacturer, but no longer. Too hard on my hands. Arthritis...
In Anacortes, the streets don't close to traffic until 6 pm the day before the show. Booths will set up in the street against the east curb, the west curb, and right down the middle, standard size ten by ten feet. We try to be on a side street close to time so we can begin load-in promptly: drive in close to our booth space, get everything out of the van and off the roof, raise the canopy before Frank drives the van offsite to park.
Practice at weekly Saturday Markets helps us with quick unloading. We need any time we've saved to shim and level the display furniture. This is a real street, with almost three inches difference between the front of the booth and the gutter. It looks weird to see the shelf unit shimmed as much as it needs to be level. Hopefully, pots will interrupt the line once everything is out.
Distraction comes when food truck trailers try to park on the east curb south of us. The first fifth-wheel trailer takes forever, but finally manages to park smoothly; the second--with its enormous pick-up pulling--has problems. Too big to simply back and fill around the booths already set up. Thankfully, the show's volunteer crew is able to relocate a booth already set up in the center row to give the food rig a more reasonable angle. Once the pick-up truck is gone, we pause to help our neighbors carry their canopy back into position.
Muscle memory helps us with the familiar unloading of pots--we do this every Saturday, after all. Sometime in the middle, we take a break for sandwiches and fruit. Hands get shaky when we're too hungry--not appreciated around pottery.
After the break, it's time to finish up the remaining load-in boxes, and decide what more needs to be done tonight. Paper items like shelf talkers--small signs with item names and prices--and business cards won't go out until morning. We're near the ocean, and there will be moisture overnight. The sun is getting low behind the buildings, and we're not certain how much help we'll get from streetlights. If we come in an hour early tomorrow, there will be time to put out the extra items there's shelf space for in this 10x10 booth, and rearrange the last few items in the display.
So we stop; we need to be awake enough for the 20-minute drive to Oak Harbor where the motel is. Button up the booth: pull in the restock boxes, move everything away from the gutter (don't want to be surprised by rain), and loop velcro straps from the walls around the canopy legs. Once upon a sale we actually used the corner zippers provided by the manufacturer, but no longer. Too hard on my hands. Arthritis...