Final Report on Family Living Tent, Farm Technology Days, August 12-142014

EDUCATIONAL BOOTHS

By Laurel Hoeth

  1. Find out early how many booths will be available for you to fill.
  2. Get suggestions from Family Living Committee and contact names, phone/email if you are not familiar with organizations and key people and what organization does in community
  3. Try to include some State-wide agencies as well as local or regional representatives in booths. Booths I didn’t have space for but would have been nice to have in our tent include chiropractic, physical therapy, massage, alternative medicine, vaccinations such as FLU, Tetanus,blood sugar testing, early skin cancer detection.
  4. Check to make sure there is little duplication of booths in your tent as well as other tents in Tent City.
  5. Keep running list of booths, and be sure to add a couple extra in case of agency backing out at last minute. Keep FL Committee posted as to groups that have applied and acceptance into our tent.
  6. Place booths alphabetical if possible for ease of finding if people are looking for specific group.
  7. Do not place competitors, example two hospitals that provide similar services, close together
  8. Be sure in initial acceptance letter, you mention the size of the booth so there are no surprises. However, we learned right at the end that the booths were a little smaller than our initial letter had stated. Alert people through your email if that is the case prior to event.
  9. Send out information final letter with parking passes and gate admission tickets a month from event. Include in mailing the following:
  1. Final letter
  2. map of tent city
  3. directions on where to park and how to get to site
  4. booth layout assignment
  5. parking passes
  6. admission tickets for each day
  7. printed program (suggested by booth participants)
  8. Through email, let booth participants know when final mailing is coming. Be aware that it is difficult for booths to indicate until close to the event actually how many admission tickets they will need sincebooth staff may only work half a day so additional tickets have to be ordered. You need to be very flexible on this since there WILL BE changes as to how many admission tickets the booths will need right up to the event.
  1. Information on breakdown of booths after event. Be sure you are really clear in final letter as to when booths can be taken down, and if items are left, where they can locate lost and found items from the tent. If possible, even provide a phone number for lost and found from Family Living Tent.

Set – up Time

  1. Be sure you have everyone on email by last month prior to event. Email details as soon as you find out from head committee members as to when tent will be up, time to set up, etc. Keep them in the loop!
  2. If you know of a booth that could use some more space, place them on far ends from stage so they can use the rest of the tent space overflow. Since our tent was a little larger than initially planned, we had some wasted space on one end of our tent that could have been additional educational booths.
  3. Booth personnel had no problems setting up since there were volunteers to help bring in booth displays or they could easily drive right up to booth the day before and/or morning of the first day.
  4. Let booth personnel know that if they have a problem with something, that they need to let you know immediately, example, music too loud, no electrical current, whatever.
  5. Be sure to include a curtain on stage so that when speaker down in front of stage, the back of stage could be setting up for performance. That worked out well by having a curtain that could be pulled back and dropped when needed so there was less white space between events in our tent.

Actual Event

  1. Personally meet booth personnel each day and introduce yourself since they may only work one day. Wear a name tag daily so that booth personnel finally can put a name with the face!
  2. Provide water or drinks every few hours to all booth personnel each day.
  3. Serve treats and drinks both to guests and booth personnel at the Opening Ceremony. The booth personnel really appreciated being included in the snacks at the Opening Ceremony. Left over Opening Ceremony snacks were distributed to booth participants until they were gone throughout the day.

Tear Down

Be sure participants understand when booths can be dismantled. Since there is a safety issue of driving down streets prior to closure of event, all booths must tear down after event is over. Cars/vans can be driven close to tent to dismantle at closure of event and there would be 4 wheelers to assist with hauling if necessary.

Considerations for 2015:

The only concern I had was the placement of the Aspirus Mobile Mammography Unit that was available on Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, it was under-utilized and as staff and I discussed what we could have done differently, these are our suggestions:

  1. Placement of unit so that it is at corner of a street broad side so VERY visible to visitors.

Unfortunately, our unit was tucked between the Mercantile Tent and Family Living Tent and was set too far back so guests did not really see that the unit was open for business.

  1. To improve utilization, a small enclosed tent in front of unit with nurse staff/counselor could talk privately to visitors and set up appointments, assess risk factors, do bone density, education, etc. TheAspirus booth was inside Family Living Tent with counselor with no privacy and sometimes music playing making it difficult to discuss personal issues. Consider placing unit near the Ice Cream Tent since had high traffic.
  2. Announcements over the P.A. regarding the Mobile Unit being on the grounds needs to be done on a regular basis throughout the event describing the various tests and the value of getting the tests done and sent to family doctor during the three-day event.
  3. In program, clearly specify where unit is located. In all pre-publicity, the unit should be publicized as well as where it is located in Tent City.