Behind the Booth: Preparing for a Fall Festival
By the time you walk into a fall festival and see our tent filled with colorful bags of Freeze Dried Yummies, everything looks pretty simple.
Tent up.
Candy displayed.
Banner hanging.
We’re ready to go.
What you don’t see is the one to two weeks of preparation, 300–500 bags of product, an SUV packed within an inch of its life, a very early alarm clock…and quite a bit of coffee.
Especially the coffee. ☕
Running a festival booth is a little like putting on a stage production. Customers see the finished show, but most of the work happens before the curtain ever goes up.
So, come behind the booth with me.
Here’s what it actually takes to get Freeze Dried Yummies from my freeze dryers to a fall festival.
1. Festival Prep Starts Long Before Festival Day
For me, preparing for a fall festival usually begins one to two weeks before the event, depending on its size.
The bigger the festival, the earlier I start.
That’s because I don’t just need a few bags to put on display.
A typical event means preparing somewhere around 300–500 bags of Yummies.
That requires planning.
What sold well last time?
How big is this event?
What seasonal products should I bring?
What am I running low on?
What needs to go through the freeze dryer first?
It’s part experience and part educated guessing.
No matter how many festivals you’ve done, you never know exactly what shoppers will want that particular Saturday.
💡 Practical Tip
If you’re preparing for your first vendor event, don’t wait until the final few days to make inventory. Give yourself extra time for the things that inevitably take longer than expected.
2. Fall Means Some Special Yummies Come Back
Fall festivals are my favorite events of the year.
Part of that is the atmosphere—cooler weather, live music, food and shopping.
But fall also means bringing back products I don’t necessarily offer throughout the rest of the year.
Our fall lineup includes favorites like:
🍎 Harvest Apples
🍬 Candy Corn
🍮 Caramel-style candies
🍏 Caramel Apple Suckers
🥜 Peanut Brittle
🍫 Milk Duds
There’s something fun about seasonal treats.
When you only see certain favorites for part of the year, their return feels a little more special.
And fall candy just belongs at a fall festival.
3. Then Come the Bags…Lots and Lots of Bags
Running the freeze dryers is only part of the process.
Everything still needs to be packaged.
When you’re preparing 300–500 bags, that becomes a job of its own.
Product has to be prepared, freeze dried, checked, portioned, packaged and made ready for sale.
And all those different varieties need enough inventory to make it through the event.
That’s one thing customers don’t always see when they shop with a small business.
The bag they’re holding might take seconds to pick up from the display.
Getting it there took considerably longer.
💡 Practical Tip
Batch similar tasks together. Preparing several products, packaging multiple batches, or organizing inventory at once is much more efficient than constantly switching between jobs.
4. The Night Before: Tetris, SUV Edition
The night before an event, everything gets loaded.
And when I say loaded…
I mean loaded.
Everything for the booth has to fit tightly into an SUV.
That includes our 10×10 tent, two five-foot tables, wire shelving, signage, products, checkout supplies, and everything else we need to turn an empty patch of pavement or grass into a Freeze Dried Yummies store for the day.
Our booth includes wire shelves spanning the entire 10-foot width, with a checkout area in the center.
We also have a 15-foot flag, a banner across the back of the tent, and a printed table runner with our logo.
It all fits.
Somehow. 😂
I’ve had enough practice that packing the SUV has become its own system.
And that’s good, because the next morning usually starts very early.
5. Festival Morning Starts With Coffee
Some events mean leaving home at a reasonable hour.
Others?
I’m pulling out of the driveway at 5:00 a.m.
My festival-morning checklist has one item that is absolutely non-negotiable:
Coffee.
Coffee before leaving home.
Coffee while driving.
And after we finish setting up?
Yes.
More coffee.
I really love coffee. 😂
There’s no leisurely music-filled setup routine at our booth.
When we arrive, I’m ready to work.
Get the SUV unloaded.
Get the tent up.
Build the displays.
Put out the products.
Hang the signage.
Get everything ready.
Then I relax.
6. Thirty Minutes—Because We’ve Done This A Few Times
My mom helps me run the booth, and after doing this together for years, we have our system pretty well figured out.
We can now set up the entire booth in about 30 minutes.
It wasn’t always that way.
Setup used to take considerably longer.
But repetition teaches you little things.
You learn what comes out of the vehicle first.
You learn where everything goes.
You stop debating where a shelf belongs because it has belonged in the same place for the last twenty events.
Everybody knows their job.
And eventually something that once felt complicated becomes routine.
That’s one of those small-business lessons that applies to almost everything:
You don’t have to have the perfect system when you start.
Sometimes you build the system simply by doing the work enough times.
7. Then the Fun Part Starts
Once everything is set up, that’s when I can relax.
Coffee in hand, of course.
And this is why fall festivals remain my favorite.
There’s usually live music somewhere nearby.
Food vendors are getting started.
Other booths are opening.
Shoppers begin arriving.
And eventually I start seeing familiar faces.
I’ve been attending many of the same events for years, so I have regular customers who seek out the Freeze Dried Yummies booth.
That’s my favorite part.
I enjoy selling the candy, obviously.
But I genuinely enjoy talking with people.
That’s something you don’t get while packing an online order at home.
Festivals put the people back into small business.
8. The Hardest Part Comes When Everyone Goes Home
You might think the 5 a.m. alarm is the hardest part of festival day.
Nope.
It’s the end. 😂
You’ve been on your feet all day.
You’ve talked to hundreds of people.
You’re tired.
Your feet hurt.
All you really want to do is sit down.
And then you look around.
There’s the tent.
The tables.
The shelves.
The banner.
The flag.
The remaining inventory.
Everything that came out of that SUV…
has to go back into the SUV.
Breaking down and loading everything at the end of an event is probably my least favorite part.
Fortunately, Mom and I have gotten pretty efficient at that too.
Then it’s time to head home.
And eventually unload again.
Small-business glamour at its finest.
🍂 What Customers See vs. What Happens Behind the Booth
What customers see:
A 10×10 tent filled with Yummies.
What happened first:
1–2 weeks of preparation
300–500 bags
Freeze dryers running
Packaging
Inventory planning
Loading an SUV
A very early morning
A 30-minute setup
Several cups of coffee
And finally…
Festival time.
I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t enjoy it.
Especially in fall.
There’s something about live music, good food, local vendors, familiar customers and an entire community spending the day together that makes all that preparation worthwhile.
❤️ The Best Part Still Isn’t the Candy
Freeze Dried Yummies started as a business.
But after years of doing the same festivals, something interesting happens.
People who once walked up to your booth as strangers start becoming familiar faces.
You remember them.
They remember you.
Some know exactly what they’re looking for before they ever reach the table.
And sometimes I’m setting up in the morning wondering whether a particular customer will show up that day.
That’s the part of small business that can’t fit into an online shopping cart.
So the next time you walk through a fall festival and see rows of tents filled with handmade products, food, artwork and treats, remember:
There was probably a pretty busy week behind every one of those booths.
And quite possibly a very tired small-business owner underneath the tent…
who would still love for you to stop and say hello. ❤️
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