The show-day checklist we wish every organiser had

Show day rarely fails on the big things. It fails on a dead phone at the gate, a trader with no pitch number, and nobody knowing who holds the float. This checklist is the accumulated scar tissue of a lot of show mornings — adapt it, print it, and give every line an owner’s name.

The night before

• Charge every phone and battery pack that will scan tickets tomorrow. Then charge the spares.
• Print the trader list with pitch numbers and phone numbers — paper works when signal doesn’t.
• Print two copies of the floor plan: one for the door, one for the setup lead.
• Confirm the float: how much, in what denominations, who collects it, who signs for it.
• Check tomorrow’s weather and decide any wet-plan changes now, not at 7am.
• Send traders a final reminder with arrival window, unloading rules and your on-the-day number.

Setup morning (doors minus 3 hours)

• Walk the venue before anyone else arrives: fire exits clear, toilets stocked, signage up.
• One person owns trader arrivals — checking them in, pointing to pitches, keeping the unloading bay moving.
• Chase no-shows by phone at your cut-off time, then re-allocate empty pitches from the reserve list.
• Test a real ticket scan on every device that will be scanning. A test at 8am saves a queue at 10am.
• Brief the door team: what a valid ticket looks like, what to do with a failed scan, who to call for problems.

Doors

• Open on time. A queue you let build in the first ten minutes follows you all day.
• Split lanes if you can: pre-paid scans move fast; walk-ups paying at the box office move slower.
• Have one roaming person with no fixed job — they absorb every surprise so the gate team doesn’t.

Mid-show

• Do a full floor walk each hour: blocked aisles, struggling traders, overflowing bins.
• Push announcements when anything changes — a cancelled demonstration, a moved car park, a found child’s teddy. If you use Popup Pal, a live announcement reaches every ticket holder’s phone in seconds.
• Check sales and attendance numbers around lunchtime — if footfall is soft, post to socials while there’s still an afternoon to save.
• Feed your volunteers. Seriously. Rota fifteen-minute breaks and a hot drink.

Pack-down and the day after

• Nobody drives into the hall until visitors are out. Announce closing fifteen minutes ahead.
• Reconcile the float and door takings before people scatter, with two people counting.
• Walk the venue with the venue contact and photograph its condition — deposit disputes die in daylight.
• Within 48 hours: thank traders and visitors, note what broke while it’s fresh, and open rebooking for your next date while goodwill is at its peak.

The pattern underneath all of this: decide everything decidable before the day, and give every remaining decision one named owner. If the tooling side is the part that keeps breaking — scanning, box office, announcements — that’s the part Popup Pal was built for.