A Carvans in the Sun, Showground event – Stafford 2022

Written by Chris Goodacre from Upsticks

After the previous weekend at A Place in the Sun, I felt a lot more confident going into the Caravan in the Sun’s Showground event weekend. 

As a pre-event warm-up, I was asked to give a presentation to the Caravans in the Sun team on the Friday afternoon, explaining what Upsticks do and how our service can help their clients. 

It made a pleasant change to talk about Upsticks from that perspective, after spending the previous weekend selling our services to potential clients.  It gave me the chance to delve deep into the structure of the services we offer, and how what we do can directly and specifically help their client demographic.

However, Mother Nature decided she wanted to get involved, and a raging storm threatened to kill the whole weekend. I left Friday happy with the meeting but worried the event would end up being washed out.

Saturday,

Opening the curtains of my hotel, I was relieved to see that it wasn’t cloudy, so we were on! A short drive to the Showground and then it was time to get the stand up and running, but this didn’t exactly go according to plan. It turns out the stand isn’t really suitable for an outside show. I had just got the stand sorted out, when a gust of wind blew the 3×3 wall towards me – I tried to stop it, but it collapsed on top of me, not the look I was going for with 10 minutes until opening time. Not to be beaten, I took the stand to the side of a caravan and put it flat against the wall, so it wouldn’t blow down again. Phew!

I started to set up my flyers and the first people interested in residency came over for a chat.  As I started to talk, the stand went over again! I gave up, packed it away as fast as I could and got cracking with the conversations. 

Outdoor exhibitions are a completely different experience, and not just because of the Great British weather! People have different questions and experiences and I had a well prepared script from the week before, so it was great to put it into practice. It was lovely to see several people who had also been at the NEC the week before, and the Caravans in the Sun team did a wonderful job of keeping me busy on both days. It was a very successful weekend.

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