Fidgey Ray Boutique's First Ever Pop Up Event!

 Hi everyone! 

Katie here. I'm the owner of Fidgey Ray Boutique, a female, veteran-owned business based in Lorton, Virginia. We specialize in trendy women's fashion with a little bit of edge. 

If you've been following along for a while, you know that we have been 100% online since our opening! While that is awesome, the pandemic really left me wanting to connect with new customers on a more personal level. I don't think I'm the only one that is just tired of being all online, all the time! So, we decided to shift gears a bit and start focusing more on in-person events in addition to our online and social media presence. My mentor gave me awesome advice and told me to look locally for in-person events that I could be a part of, so that's exactly what I did. About a week after that advice, I stumbled across the Lorton Community Market, an event that was happening right down the road from our home! And....

Our first-ever pop-up shop event in Virginia happened last Saturday! I'm SO excited to share how it went!

The Planning

To be 100% honest, I was totally terrified of how the event would go! Those of you who know me personally know that I am SUCH a perfectionist that I didn't want to mess anything up and I wanted everything to be exactly how I envisioned it in my head. 

Obviously, in-person events never go exactly as planned so I was able to take a breath, manage my expectations, and push forward giving it the best I had. 

I started out by thinking about how I wanted my customer's experience to be at the market. It was an open-air market in Lorton, Virginia. Lorton is about 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC and it's a growing community with lots of potential customers for Fidgey Ray! My husband and I moved to Lorton about a year ago and are LOVING it. 

So, I started thinking about how I wanted the customer experience to go. I wanted people to feel welcomed, excited, and inspired when looking at our tent. 

So I made a run to local stores and to target to find things to decorate our tent and table with. I found some really cute, trendy items that really took the look of the pop up shop up a notch! 

Also, online the customer is able to see pricing on the screen, so I never have any reason to put actual tags on our clothing. But, I knew that in person I needed tags so that people looking through items could easily find the size and price. SO I stayed up until 1am the night before the event tagging EVERYTHING we had in stock and double checking our inventory counts! 

Another thing that was really important to me was connecting with everyone I met in person on social media. So I grabbed a couple of signs to advertise our Fidgey Ray Boutique instagram, where we do most of our interacting with customers (you can follow us at https://instagram.com/fidgeyray).

This may be a little crazy of me, but I also did a mock table set up on our guest bedroom dresser. As a women's clothing vendor, first impressions are everything so I wanted to make sure I knew the exact placement of each item before I got to the event! I took a photo of it the night before so that I could quickly refer to it during setup the next day. Here's a photo of the mock table set up so you can get a peek into the process:

The Event

So - full disclosure. I actually woke up about 45 minutes late on the actual day of the event! Haha. BUT it was all good. That morning, I had some last minute pop up prep work to do, so I enlisted my husband's help as soon as he opened his eyes (not an ideal way to wake up your husband, ladies!). 

The event location is a historic site so there are some extra rules when we set up there. One of those rules is that we are not allowed to use tent stakes on site! And they are 10000% necessary when the location also has a wind tunnel effect. So, we had to create some sandbags. :) To do this, we got 4 pillowcases from Target, a 50 pound bag of playground sand from Home Depot, and some heavy duty 8 gallon trashbags. Then we made homemade sandbags (if that wasn't the Army training coming out in both of us, I don't know what is lol). 

After that, we loaded up the car and headed over to the event! A week prior to the pop up shop, we had done some recon on the site to see what we should expect. The site is about a mile walk from our apartment, so I took my dog Bennie up there the week before.

The Lorton Community Market is located in a part of the old Workhouse building - which is SUPER cool with a very rich history! The facility is a 55-acre center for the arts and education that utilizes historic structures on repurposed land in what used to be the Lorton Reformatory. 

Here's what the site looks like: 

So basically, we had about 24 vendors - all small businesses located in Lorton, Virginia and the surrounding area right near the Occoquan River. I was nestled in the back left corner of the event, which definitely had its pros and cons. 

On the day of the event, I arrived at around 0900 for setup and to get all of our clothing hung and pretty for the customers. It was a little chilly that morning, and overcast the whole time. The event started at 10am and lasted until 2pm. 

At around 0945 am, people started showing up to the event and purchasing. Honestly, I got really frustrated because I didn't make one sale until about 1045. But things really picked up at around 11, and more people started showing up. 

Here's a photo of our final set up!

During the event, we hit our monthly sales goal which was freaking incredible!! I was jumping for joy in the tent. :) I also got super lucky and was set up next to team of local bakers, so I indulged in an amazing loaf and some sweet treats from Chez Dee Breads, also located here in Lorton! 

If you've never done a pop up shop before, it's really a hit or miss! According to the other vendors, the event did not have a lot of foot traffic compared to other weeks, but I was definitely satisfied with our sales that day. We will be participating in the event for most of the season (the event runs every Saturday from April-October), so I'm excited to see how the rest of the season goes. 

Honestly, I was over the moon just to be outside, connecting with customers and other local businesses, munching on amazing treats, and doing what I love - talking about this season's trendiest clothing. It was great to FINALLY be at an event with that many people, when we've been spending so much time inside throughout the past year. 

If you're ever in the Lorton, Virginia area on a Saturday and you're looking for a family-friendly event to bring the whole family to, stop by and say hi to me at Fidgey Ray Boutique's booth! The Lorton Community Market is definitely going to keep growing as the season goes on, and it's the perfect outing for spring, summer, and fall! 

If you're interested in checking out our on-trend clothing, you can check out our website at fidgeyray.com. Thank you SO much for reading and we look forward to helping you create confidence in your own style and fall in love with your closet again!