Three 'silly' questions

Hi all--

Being new to all this, yet to even to get a booth photo done, I have three silly little questions:

1. When I put up my brand new canopy, the ABCanopy from Amazon, the instructions said to ‘lift the frame by expanding the truss bars until the frame is fully expanded.’ Easier said than done. I suppose they meant to press the 4 pair of truss bar joints together until the frame snapped into place, but that 4th pair was a doozy. Was I right about the instructions? Any suggestions on how to make this easier? The canopy had never been erected before, so it might just have been 'tight.'

2. When I erected the canopy, I noticed that I really didn't have anything to hang my canvas prints from! Ok, call it lack of foresight, but what are some answers to this problem? Staybars? Hanging from the truss supports and taping the wires to the back of the supports so they wont move?

3. Do shows sometimes have 'rent a helpers' who could be employed for an hour or two to help set up a tent and display? Might be a nice job for a teenager or for someone who is going to be a volunteer later in the day. I'm a reasonably fit 69-year old (I think), but I'll probably be going to shows alone.

Thanks,

---David

Replies

Larry Berman April 20, 2016 at 12:02pm

2 - you still need walls to hang your artwork on. Look into mesh walls from Flourish. They make them for different types of canopies, besides their own Trimline. You also need sta bars which come from them also so you have something to anchor the mesh walls to at the bottom.

Larry Berman
- David Perry Lawrence > Larry Berman April 20, 2016 at 3:49pm
  
  Thanks, Larry. I'm working with flourish to see if their 'StaBars for other manufacturers' will work for me.
  
  When you say, 'you still need walls to hang your artwork on' do you mean this as some sort of requirement? I was planning on putting up the flexible walls, then using very thin, transparent mono-filament nylon to hang from the sta bars. I think this would be much more attractive than a mesh wall.
  
  Thanks again,
  
  David
  - Robert Wallis > David Perry Lawrence April 20, 2016 at 5:10pm
    
    I'll second what Larry said about pieces swinging in the wind. Visualize a puff of wind hitting the side tarps, puffing them inward, and your framed prints, canvases, or metal prints becoming expensive one-shot wind chimes. There's a reason that photographers and 2D artists use sturdy walls or very taut mesh walls. Large photos do not make very good pendulums :-)
    - David Perry Lawrence > Robert Wallis April 21, 2016 at 9:40am
      
      Larry & Robert-
      
      Thanks again. My tent doesn't have top bars. It looks like the tent in this picture, except much sturdier and without the full lower stabars. Let me run this by you. If I get a set of 3 top stabars and a set of 3 mesh walls with lower stabars, would that do the trick?
      
      Thanks,
      
      --David
      
      my canopy.jpg
      - Larry Berman > David Perry Lawrence April 21, 2016 at 9:42am
        
        You're asking the wrong people. Call Flourish and tell them what kind of tent and ask them what you need.
        
        Larry Berman
        
        David Perry Lawrence > Larry Berman April 21, 2016 at 9:43am
        
        OK.
  - Larry Berman > David Perry Lawrence April 20, 2016 at 4:02pm
    
    Won't help sturdy the tent and won't give you any flexibility in how the work is displayed. Plus it will cause the pieces to swing in the wind.
    
    Larry Berman

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