Glow in the Dark Stars Display Tent

[Skylighter]

To sell glow in the dark star ceilings at craft, home, and kid events, you typically need a display tent. This dark tent allows potential buyers to actually see how nice glow stars can look.

If you make the tent fun, you can also do cheap advertising whenever kids and parents congregate. In this case, I would suggest you contact several dozen local PTA's to inquire about planned evening events.

Here are some tips on construction:

Tent:

I highly recommend the $250 carport sold at Costco. At 10' x 30', it is large, durable and easy to set up. The poles are 2" and the tarp material is very thick. Glow Inc has had one outdoors for rain and high winds for several days without a problem. For the price, it is an amazing value.

A 10' x 10' option is the EZ-UP style canopies. Make sure that you get one with 4 walls. While they go up easy, these tend to be a bit small. I suggest you do not but the 15' x 10' version as it is cumbersome to erect. Unlike the carport, these can not survive weather like rain and wind.

A low cost, but hard to erect alternative, is to simply build a frame out of wood and cover it with Coroplast (corrugated plastic) using tacks. Each halloween, Glow Inc builds 250 feet of hallways using this method.

Ceiling and Walls

Paint your ceiling design on white Coroplast sheets and hang it inside using cable ties and/or velcro.

Even if you do not intend to paint the walls, you may need to cover them with coroplast to keep out external light. I prefer black coroplast for the walls. Of course painting the walls adds another dimension

Black lights

For adult sales, I would suggest that you turn on the black lights when the room is empty and turn off the black light just before people enter the room. For a more automated setup, put the black light on a timer and have it turn on for 30 seconds every half hour.

For kids events, I typically leave the black light on. In this case, it is preferred that the black light shines upwards and that the actual bulb can not be seen by adults standing in the room.

You want to use black lights that do not require holding down a button to turn them on. This allows you to route their power through a power strip or timer that you can control from the outside.

Stage fixture style black lights are durable for transport and can be mounted to a quick release bracket. For a mobile star room, I would suggest a product like the Chauvet LED Shadow.

A lower cost alternative is the tube style black lights, which can be mounted to the vertical poles using cable ties. However, keep in mind that these are easily broken by children.

Extras

If you are doing this at a kids event, then I highly recommend that you add something else interesting to the room. I personally like the automated bubble machines. However, you need to make sure that you add some type of flooring to provide friction. Bubbles on grass is like walking on ice. Also, make sure you turn off the bubble machine when the room is unoccupied or you will end up with a big pile of bubbles on the floor. Mount the bubble machine as high as possible.

You can also make one wall a Shadow Wall.

[Abbeytoo]

Good ideas Danny. Along with school events,

churches often have 'spring flings' or 'fall festivals' where you would be able to set up a booth.

Farmers markets where they sell vegs and fruits, often have booths with candles, flowers, and other non food things, that might be worth looking into.

In CA we have a bazillion weekend flea market type things. They are permanent gigs that you can rent a booth to sell your stuff. They are always overloaded with kids running wild bugging everyone. They could just as easily bug their parents to come and look at the cool booth with stars.

We also have a series of mini concerts in neighborhood parks through out the summer with beer and food booths and now they are all starting to have some kind of crafty booth set up. If you had an easy up/easy down tent that might be an idea if they have those kind of things in your area.

You could also check with radio stations. Sometimes they take a trailer set up to a location for some promo or just because, and broadcast remotely and give out hats, shirts, etc. Its ususally in a parking lot somewhere. Ive seen people hawking stuff from tables that had nothing to do with the radio station or whatever place they were at. (I mention this because today there happens to be a station doing a remote broadcast in the parking lot of a Save Mart grocery store across the street from my house-they do it about once a month. There are people over there with their own little tables/booths selling necklaces and some other things. They just asked the station if they could do it and got an ok.) There seems to be at least one station, sometimes 2-3 every weekend doing this somewhere around town. May or may not be worth it, just an idea.

[PamminAlong]

AND, if I may add...

I'm going to build a frame and use blackout fabric. The fabric itself is white so it's great to apply a star field to the inside. At my local SAS fabrics store it is only $2.99/yd.

The frame will be a re-purposed wedding arch! I'll use the arch as an entry and also as the guiding structure for the rest of the 'tent'. Perhaps it will work well to attach the back of the fabric to the rear of my booth (or whatever space I'm using) and have the front come out over the arch.

Well, that's what I'm thinking, anyway!

[tearick]

Hello,
My name is Rick and I am new to the Glow Forums and I have had an interest with glow in the dark art for some time now but haven't really done anything much outside of my home. I really really love the idea of a booth for demonstrating the glow in the dark ceiling murals and such. I think I am my own worst salesman and this would of course bolster the artist inside me. I can see that I have a lot to learn from all of you and I also hope to be a help to you if I can. I have had some physical problems in my shoulders from the type of work I used to do and think doing glow in the dark murals might be helpful in easing the stress on my shoulders. I have just a few pics to show you but they are not very big. One was taken by a cell phone and the other is an illustration of a window I did in a windowless room which was a lot of fun. I am really glad to be here and learning and growing with the rest of you fine folks. Happy New Year to you. Rick

[Integris]

Tearick,

I would love to see an enlarged version of your second picture. Is that a ship crossing the moon, a la Peter Pan?

[lumen]

Hello Integris,
For some reason I couldn't post under my account so I had to make a new account. Here is a blow up of the moon and ship. Have a good day.

[lumen]

Hello Integris,
For some reason I couldn't post under my account so I had to make a new account. Here is a blow up of the moon and ship. The black light overpowered the overall picture which I apologize. Have a good day.

[Integris]

That is so cool

thanks

[ladkins]

Hi Rick, Just want you to know that I really like the GID window pic you posted. Did you free hand it or use a stencil? It's just a really great effect, very impressive.

[lumen]

Thanks! Sorry so late with the reply