…And that's the bell!
Dec. 24th, 2015 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrI'm dreaming of a dry load-out
Just like the ones we never get;
May your day be Merry, and yet--
May your Market load-out not be wet.
Last day of Holiday Market, and surprisingly sunny all morning and half the afternoon. Not surprisingly, the clouds begin to gather around 3 pm, and by the time Kim rings the final bell to close the Market at 4 pm, it's spitting rain. I sing my cheery little ditty as I stack empty boxes on my hand-truck to wheel inside where Denise is dismantling the hand-made paper display. It seems to work; the rain never actually develops, and it's dry when I roll out the first load of pottery, 45 minutes later.
Had a number of people comment earlier today about how long it must take to pack up our pottery. I can see how they'd get that impression: there's a lot of pots in the booth. But we've experience; we've got a system; we're professionals. (Don't try this at home, boys and girls!)
The system:
A place for everything, and everything in its place. We have more or less the same spread of pots every week, and they go back into the same boxes every week: tall mugs in one box, with a platter on top; soup bowls, toddlers, cat foods and sugar bowls--with room for exactly two french butter dishes--in another. The boxes are labeled in Sharpie on both ends, and the appropriate sizes and shapes of bubble wrap remain in the box from when we loaded in.
Don't mix load-in with restock. We used to waste a ton of time sorting through partial boxes of pottery to make room for the pots we were pulling off the shelves, more time looking through boxes for what we needed for the next set-up. Now we have only load-in pots in the load-in boxes, which are empty (except for bubble wrap) and ready to refill when we load out. Partially full boxes of restock may be consolidated at some point, but at load-out speed is more important than close-packing efficiency.
Stick with what you know. Denise and I each have boxes that we do, and only rarely do we switch out. She does mugs, mostly: painted, tall, stew, animal mugs (which also include a heavy stack of plates). I do cookie jars, casseroles/batter bowls, serving bowls, square bakers and pastas, banks, and soup bowls. It may seem like I pack more pots than her, and in terms of box count, I do, but she packs more items per box, so it comes out about the same.
As a result, we packed up an entire booth of pottery, loaded up the van, and were on our way home for Christmas Eve dinner in 50 minutes flat.
Taking down the booth is another matter. For Holiday Market, our booth includes an 8x8 foot EZ-Up booth frame, no roof (because of fire regulations). Attached to the top with cable ties are three 8 foot lengths of conduit on which are threaded black fire-proof drapery. A fourth length across the front supports our two business signs, Off Center Ceramics and Pulp Romances. Hanging lower on the frame from S-hooks on the left side and back are two 7x2 foot black grid panels, to which are zip-tied about fifteen plate/platter stands, which will need to be dismantled and dismounted.
Along the center rafter is a contractor's power strip (with 15-foot cord) into which are plugged in five clamp lamps, held in place by additional spring clamps.
Then there are shelves: a free-standing unit on the left, with 8-foot shelves, and a shorter, raked shelf unit on the right with 5-foot shelves that ties into the main display bench. All of these get dismantled into flat components and stashed in and on the roof of the van. (After we collect and pack up the wood blocks and bowl stands used to arrange our wares to best effect.) There's also two folding bar stools (Ikea, twenty bucks maybe fifteen years ago), a big bag of bags and a bucket of newsprint sheets used to wrap up purchases that we need to clear from the space before we can finally roll up the carpet in the front and pick up the foam floor cushion squares from the back.
tl;dr: It generally takes two or three times as long setting up or taking down our booth as it does to actually stock/unstock it. Which is why we're so happy to take advantage of the extra day's grace Market provides us, and will be returning on Saturday with an empty van to take our booth home.
Just like the ones we never get;
May your day be Merry, and yet--
May your Market load-out not be wet.
Last day of Holiday Market, and surprisingly sunny all morning and half the afternoon. Not surprisingly, the clouds begin to gather around 3 pm, and by the time Kim rings the final bell to close the Market at 4 pm, it's spitting rain. I sing my cheery little ditty as I stack empty boxes on my hand-truck to wheel inside where Denise is dismantling the hand-made paper display. It seems to work; the rain never actually develops, and it's dry when I roll out the first load of pottery, 45 minutes later.
Had a number of people comment earlier today about how long it must take to pack up our pottery. I can see how they'd get that impression: there's a lot of pots in the booth. But we've experience; we've got a system; we're professionals. (Don't try this at home, boys and girls!)
The system:
A place for everything, and everything in its place. We have more or less the same spread of pots every week, and they go back into the same boxes every week: tall mugs in one box, with a platter on top; soup bowls, toddlers, cat foods and sugar bowls--with room for exactly two french butter dishes--in another. The boxes are labeled in Sharpie on both ends, and the appropriate sizes and shapes of bubble wrap remain in the box from when we loaded in.
Don't mix load-in with restock. We used to waste a ton of time sorting through partial boxes of pottery to make room for the pots we were pulling off the shelves, more time looking through boxes for what we needed for the next set-up. Now we have only load-in pots in the load-in boxes, which are empty (except for bubble wrap) and ready to refill when we load out. Partially full boxes of restock may be consolidated at some point, but at load-out speed is more important than close-packing efficiency.
Stick with what you know. Denise and I each have boxes that we do, and only rarely do we switch out. She does mugs, mostly: painted, tall, stew, animal mugs (which also include a heavy stack of plates). I do cookie jars, casseroles/batter bowls, serving bowls, square bakers and pastas, banks, and soup bowls. It may seem like I pack more pots than her, and in terms of box count, I do, but she packs more items per box, so it comes out about the same.
As a result, we packed up an entire booth of pottery, loaded up the van, and were on our way home for Christmas Eve dinner in 50 minutes flat.
Taking down the booth is another matter. For Holiday Market, our booth includes an 8x8 foot EZ-Up booth frame, no roof (because of fire regulations). Attached to the top with cable ties are three 8 foot lengths of conduit on which are threaded black fire-proof drapery. A fourth length across the front supports our two business signs, Off Center Ceramics and Pulp Romances. Hanging lower on the frame from S-hooks on the left side and back are two 7x2 foot black grid panels, to which are zip-tied about fifteen plate/platter stands, which will need to be dismantled and dismounted.
Along the center rafter is a contractor's power strip (with 15-foot cord) into which are plugged in five clamp lamps, held in place by additional spring clamps.
Then there are shelves: a free-standing unit on the left, with 8-foot shelves, and a shorter, raked shelf unit on the right with 5-foot shelves that ties into the main display bench. All of these get dismantled into flat components and stashed in and on the roof of the van. (After we collect and pack up the wood blocks and bowl stands used to arrange our wares to best effect.) There's also two folding bar stools (Ikea, twenty bucks maybe fifteen years ago), a big bag of bags and a bucket of newsprint sheets used to wrap up purchases that we need to clear from the space before we can finally roll up the carpet in the front and pick up the foam floor cushion squares from the back.
tl;dr: It generally takes two or three times as long setting up or taking down our booth as it does to actually stock/unstock it. Which is why we're so happy to take advantage of the extra day's grace Market provides us, and will be returning on Saturday with an empty van to take our booth home.