Market day for organisers: a working run sheet

The final week

Plan the site around paid bookings only — an approval that hasn't been paid is an intention, not a stall. Chase stragglers early in the week or let their holds lapse to the waitlist while there's still time for the next stallholder to say yes.

Two days out, send what stallholders actually need: the site map with their position, bump-in window, vehicle rules, and a phone number that will be answered at 6am. On StallsApp, assigning each paid booking a pitch on your floorplan is what makes "where do I set up?" a question the email already answered.

Bump-in

Stagger arrivals if the site has one entrance — food trucks and big builds first, cars off site by a hard deadline you actually enforce. The first market day teaches you that one stallholder unpacking from a parked car in the laneway costs twenty other people their setup time.

No-shows and the gap plan

Someone won't come. Decide beforehand what happens to the hole: neighbouring stalls spread out, a gazebo of your own, community group on standby. Record the no-show while you're standing in front of it — attendance history is what tells you, three months later, which reliable stallholder deserves the corner site and which serial no-show doesn't get the benefit of the doubt again. StallsApp tracks attendance per booking for exactly this.

Publish your no-show policy with your booking terms — most markets don't refund a no-show, and that's fine when it was never a surprise.

Mid-day changes

When something changes mid-market — gate moved, early close, storm coming — the failure mode is telling the three stallholders nearest to you and hoping. StallsApp can broadcast a short message to every stallholder trading that day; whatever you use, the rule is the same: one message, everyone, at once.

Pack-down and the ten-minute debrief

Sweep the site — what stallholders leave behind becomes your bond problem, not theirs. Then, before the drive home erases it, write down the three things you'd change and mark off attendance. The run sheet for your next market is this one, edited.