The stalwart of campaigning is the good, old-fashioned street stall – but what do you need to bring and how can you make your event a little bit more interesting?
You will need:
- Something eye catching. You need a focus to your stall. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a table (though they work really well on broad streets or large squares). We have recently been using wind flags which are very eye-catching.
- Placards. Placards are great props, they look good in pictures, and give people an at-a-glance idea of what you are campaigning about. Even if they don’t stop and talk, they will remember that you were there. It is always better to make your own placards so they are relevant to the area and event.
- A way to sign people up. You can’t go wrong with clipboards and a pen, but if you are somewhere with quite a young population then a tablet or mobile phone may be better – New technology means we can record more email addresses and don't need to worry about typing them all in after an event! Just remember to have paper too as some people will always prefer to sign up that way.
- Something to hand out. This will usually be leaflets but not always. We are always on hand to help write them! If you are collecting signatures, it is still good to have something you can hand out to those that are interested so they can go home and look you up.
- A camera. You might talk to a few hundred people on a good street stall, but thousands could see pictures from the event. Make sure you have a camera on hand and take as many pictures as you can.
There is plenty more you could bring, but these are the basics. The trick is to make your stall look tidy and eye-catching. If you need to borrow any of these things to help a TPA campaign, please get in touch!
These are the things that you could bring, but don’t need to worry about if you don’t have:
- T-shirts or badges – something to identify members of your group
- Balloons – if you have a stall to tie them to then they can be great, but on a windy day they are more trouble than they are worth