When the Rolling Boutique Goes Into Hibernation

For most of show season, Whiskey River Craftworks has a pretty recognizable home on the road: our 1963 TravelEZE camper.

We roll in, open her up, load the A-frames, put out a few things, and we’re basically ready to go.

That’s one of the best parts of the Rolling Boutique. Most of what we sell already has a permanent home inside. The displays stay set up, the products stay organized, and we aren’t starting every show with an empty space that needs to become a store.

And we use her for as long as we possibly can.

If the weather cooperates and the venue allows it, the camper keeps rolling—even when the season starts getting a little questionable.

Eventually, though, Minnesota wins.

The weather turns icky, the camper goes into storage, and our shows move indoors.

We don’t stop. The boutique just has to change.

And that is where setup gets a whole lot less fun.

For years, our indoor setup meant hauling in grid wall, shelving, displays, signs, spinners, totes of product, and all the other pieces needed to build Whiskey River Craftworks inside a 10×10 space.

It worked.

It also just plain sucked.

So this year, we decided there had to be a better way.

Apparently, the solution is to put wheels on everything else.

The Problem With Building a Store Every Weekend

The old indoor setup looked good when it was finished.

Getting it finished was the problem.

First, everything had to get from the trailer to the booth.

Depending on the venue, that might mean a parking lot, loading area, hallway, freight entrance, or whatever spot we were lucky enough to unload from.

Ten or more trips back and forth was pretty normal.

Grid wall. Shelving. Displays. Signs. Hardware. Totes. More totes. And inevitably one extra trip for whatever ended up buried underneath everything else.

Once all of it finally reached the booth, we could start building.

Grid wall went together. Shelving got assembled. Displays and spinners found their places. Signs went up. Everything got shuffled around until it looked less like a pile of parts in a convention hall and more like Whiskey River Craftworks.

Then we could stock it.

Products came out of totes, carved pieces went onto the walls, fragrance products went into their displays, and everything got arranged and straightened.

Except setup still wasn’t done.

Because now we had a pile of empty totes and a wagon taking up valuable booth space.

And a 10×10 booth is basically the show organizer’s way of saying, “Storage? That’s adorable.”

By then, the utility trailer had usually been moved so the next vendor could unload, which meant the empty totes and wagon had to go back to wherever we finally found parking.

Sometimes that was nearby.

Sometimes it was five or six blocks away.

So after ten-plus unloading trips, building the booth, and stocking the whole thing, we got one more nice little hike before we could finally say setup was finished.

All that moving and handling wasn’t particularly kind to the merchandise either. Every trip in and out of a tote was another chance for something to get scratched, chipped, dented, crushed, or otherwise introduced to the realities of show life.

The products took a beating.

So did we.

Grid wall is awkward. Shelving is heavy. Totes are never as light as you remember them being. By the time the doors opened, we had already put in a pretty decent day of physical work.

And we still had an entire show ahead of us.

Then the show ended and we got to do the whole thing backward.

Retrieve the totes. Empty the displays. Pack the products. Take down the signs. Break apart the shelving and grid wall. Haul everything back out, trip after trip, and load the trailer.

Then do it all again at the next show.

Eventually we had to ask:

Why are we rebuilding the same store every weekend?

So We Put the Store on Wheels

That question became the plan for this winter:

Build as much of the indoor booth as possible into rolling displays that can stay assembled, stay stocked, and roll straight into the show.

We’re building rolling grid-wall units for our carved work instead of hauling individual wall sections into every venue.

The fragrance side is getting its own rolling rack with permanent shelving, dividers, product trays, and signage.

The spinners can roll in loaded.

The products can stay in their displays instead of being unpacked, arranged, repacked, and handled over and over again.

Now, these are not dainty little carts.

Fully stocked, some of the displays could weigh upwards of 300 pounds.

We aren’t eliminating the weight. We’re changing how we move it.

Rolling one complete display from the trailer to the booth sounds considerably better than carrying the same amount of stuff inside piece by piece over ten or more trips.

At least, that’s the theory.

Because before we trust a 300-pound display with our products—or our toes—it’s going to get put through its paces.

We’ll test them loaded, roll them over thresholds, move them around, lock them in place, and generally abuse them a little before they become our full-time indoor setup.

After all, eventually they’ll have to face the ultimate test:

Midwest winter.

Smooth shop floors are one thing.

Parking lots, ramps, cracks, curbs, slush, snow, ice, and whatever mystery substance is covering the loading area in January are another.

So no, we don’t think adding casters has magically solved show setup.

But if we can roll the store in mostly ready to go, cut down those endless trips, handle our products less, and save some wear and tear on ourselves, we’ll call that a pretty good improvement.

Same Chaos, Different Wheels

Show setup will probably never be effortless.

There will still be loading docks that make absolutely no sense, doors that are somehow two inches narrower than they should be, parking spots in another zip code, and weather that seems personally offended by our plans.

But hopefully the winter version of Whiskey River Craftworks will start feeling a little more like the camper does now:

Roll in. Put things where they belong. Straighten a few things. Open the booth.

Then we can get to the reason we actually came—meeting people, talking cars and projects, finding gifts, discussing questionable candle names, and whatever else wanders into the booth that day.

There is, however, one major flaw in this plan.

No coffee maker.

One of the perks of having your boutique inside an actual camper is that caffeine is never very far away.

And while the obvious solution would be to build a rolling coffee cart to go with the rest of the indoor setup…

We should probably stop somewhere before the entire booth is on casters and we’re dangerously over-caffeinated for a Midwest winter.

Probably.

The TravelEZE will still roll with us whenever the weather and venue allow.

When she finally has to hibernate, we’ll just change what rolls through the door.

And knowing us, we’ll probably find something else to put wheels on before winter is over.