I Had to Hop Up my Pop Up
I can’t leave anything alone. All we needed was a stock pop up shelter; a bit of shade when we are selling T’s and art.
It was fine right out of the box; in fact this thing was really deluxe for a discount tent. Sturdy legs, nice white top, roller bag, side curtains, what more did we need but a few tables and chairs…..and then I got to thinking about a few improvements.
I decided that we needed some cool way of displaying each shirt so I came up with a frame to mount them in. Once I started down this road I realized that I would need a panel or something to mount them to. So, I did a few sketches and came up with a façade to frame the opening of the tent that would also be a place to mount the frames.
This thing is growing.
Of course you have to put a logo on a pop up so people will know who you are. The answer to that was to go up. I added a frame around the top to hold a banner. After staring at this for a while I decided the logo really needed to be bigger so I did a cut out one and stuck it on top of the frame.
This thing is getting taller.
Now, once it was mocked up I realized that it was kind of like a big sail and all it would take is a small gust of wind and this thing was going down fast and taking the pop up with it; maybe a few unlucky bystanders too. Something was needed to make it stable. I looked at outriggers, weights and angle braces before deciding to make a matching back frame, connecting it all with the braces at the top.
This thing is getting bigger.
But now that it is built, how in the world am I going to set this up by myself!? More thinking and head scratching and I came up with a few temporary leg stands that let me do it all without any help.
So here it is - ACME SPEED SHOP’S “Hopped-Up - Pop-Up”.
Let me know what you think. And if you are at the Primer Nationals on Labor Day, come and see us and give the “Pop-Up” a look over.
