All of my booth improvements seem to be working. First, the new tablecloths look terrific, and are much easier to handle. Second, the inexpensive mesh walls behave nicely, and provide the wind mitigation I hoped they would. This morning, I tested the steel frame.

I bought metal fittings for corners and center joints. They fit over inexpensive EMT (conduit pipe), which I bought at Lowe’s. I’m giving them a shout out because their employee Bobby very patiently made 26 cuts to get the pipes the length I needed. Thank you! Anyway, nothing is over 5 feet long now, which means it’ll fit in my car.

The frame is like a cube, except there’s no pipe at center front, where you would trip on it. It’s less about strength than rigidity, which is fine for my needs. The primary use will be to fit just inside my canopy, tightly bungeed to the canopy frame for stability in windy outdoor shows. The secondary use will be standalone at indoor shows, if I decide I’d rather have that than the canopy. I even got two different sets of pipe lengths for the two uses — taller for standalone indoor. This morning I timed myself assembling and disassembling. 25 minutes to go up, about half of that to come down. And that was without benefit of caffeine!

It didn’t go perfectly, but it was the first time, and it will get better. I’m very pleased with this. I don’t think I could have gotten a commercial frame for nearly as cheap. It’s exactly the sizes I need, too. Yea! Now I have to hit the shower and get ready for the regular day.