Subject:
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Re: Train Show Setup Issues
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains.org
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Date:
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Tue, 10 May 2005 13:31:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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3339 times
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In lugnet.trains.org, Mike Kollross wrote:
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Our (NALUG) last display was 45’ x 25’. It took in excess of 14 hours x 10
people = 140 man hours to set up. And we were pretty close to killing each
other by the end. I would suggest either a smaller, more detailed display or
one that is modular.
Mike
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Mike-
Our experience with setup (and teardown) is all over the place (good, bad, OK).
Here’s what I’ve learned over 4 years:
- The job expands to fill the time allowed (and then some). Normally we have up to 10 hours. A good time for us for a 2 day show is 4 hours, not so good is 8. Last fall, we were given 3 days for SDMRRM. Guess what? It took 3 days (and then some)!
- The more you do in advance, the better. Ideally, everything should be prebuilt and laid out on the tables it will be displayed on. The worst thing is building (reassembling) on site. It slows everyone else down and means those folks aren’t available to help with club-wide stuff.
- It’s great to have a map. Even better to have one with coordinates and have those coordinates on the tables and (in our case) on the crates where those tables are stored. We did this for the first time at FRRD last weekend and it made a big difference because the info was available to everyone.
- It’s vital to have someone in charge.
- It’s vital to have someone arrive early.
- It’s vital to have worked out all the site issues before arriving (parking, loading access, timing, electricity, lighting, etc.)
- Experience helps. The more you do it, the better you get. (Or the more burnt out, I’m not sure!)
- Traditionally, we work until we are done. This can result in people who haven’t eaten for 12 hours. Plan a deliberate break no matter how it’s going. It’s good to rest and regroup.
- Finally, if it’s taking too long and people aren’t happy, rethink the problem. Maybe the layout is too big. Maybe you don’t have enough (experienced) people. Maybe you need more infrastructure (crates, tables, carrying boxes, etc.) We have continually improved our ability to deploy a show and the result was that last week we substantially filled a 40 x 30 space. We tore down and drove off in just 3 hours. We had some issues during setup, but we dealt with them and can mitigate them in the future (for one thing, we took 2 hours to diagnose a wiring problem with our first DCC layout that had nothing to do with DCC: turned out we had 6 reversing loops instead of the 5 we thought we had).
Good luck.
-Ted
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Train Show Layout Size Restrictions??
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| (...) Our (NALUG) last display was 45' x 25'. It took in excess of 14 hours x 10 people = 140 man hours to set up. And we were pretty close to killing each other by the end. I would suggest either a smaller, more detailed display or one that is (...) (20 years ago, 9-May-05, to lugnet.trains.org)
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