Logistics

Click on the tabs to the right to learn more about organizing your POP-UP Festival.

Your role & building a team

As a host, your job is to coordinate the event by bringing the resources and people together. Since a POP-UP Festival is not a “class” or “workshop,” you don’t need to “teach” the content. Instead, you and other volunteers will be playing together with your participants to explore and learn together.

 

You can do this project yourself, or with a group of allies. The number of volunteers depends on three main factors:

  1. How many people do you want to have? More people means you will need to set up more “stations,” which means more complexity, which means you might want more help!
  2. Will you have young children without their parents at your festival, or other people who don’t read yet or don’t like to read? If so, you will need more people to help since the stations are all include written instructions.
  3. Do you want to add more to the project by including food/beverages, other fun, and celebration (such as music), and additional decorations? This will add to the complexity and so, might require more helpers.

 

To give you some perspective on the number of people needed: For a festival for a group of 30-40 participants who read, we set up 14 stations. Prepping the event (the day before) two volunteers were able to get all the materials printed and ready in 3 hours. On the day of the event, it took just over an hour to set up materials for the festival and decorate the room.  A third person was responsible for refreshments.

Who to Invite and How?

As we’ve said, a POP-UP Festival can be for children, adults, or both together. Who do you want to reach? Who do you have access to reach?

On the Invitations page, you can find different types of invitations to hand out, send home with students, etc. Below are snapshots of example invitations.

       

With your invitations also remember to explain the concept of the festival.

 

The festival is very adaptable. Depending on your group size, weather, and what’s available, it could be in a park, lobby of an office or hospital, classroom, living room, library…. You will need:

Enough space for your number of participants.  A festival with 8 people and 4 activity stations can be done around one table. A festival with 100 participants and 20 activity stations and musicians playing… will obviously need a much larger space!

To set up the stations, you’ll need either tables or floor space. One option is to have station instructions posted on the wall with materials on a table, like in the picture to the right.

If your participants will be comfortable on the floor, that’s also perfect for the stations. You could use a shawl or other colorful fabric to designate the space of each station.

Tip: During October, we will have several online meetings to discuss how to hold a POP-UP festival — please come with your questions! You are also VERY welcome to share questions in our Facebook Group, here is a shortcut: https://www.facebook.com/groups/eqpopup

Key tip: The POP-UP Festival is designed to be a positive, engaging learning experience. Make it simple enough so you can also have a positive experience! If you have a lot of help, you can make a very large event. You can also have a wonderful POP-UP Festival with a small group and just a couple of hours of preparation.