Your exhibition, properly organised.
Built for the clubs and societies who run annual shows on weekends and committee evenings. Sell entry, list layouts, take trader bookings, and welcome the same visitors back next year.
- Free to try
- No card needed
- Live in minutes
The problem
One show a year. Twelve months of admin.
Most clubs run their exhibition on a treasurer's spreadsheet, a printed floor plan, and a clipboard at the door. Trader cheques go missing. Two layouts get booked into the same bay. The visitor list from last year sits in someone's inbox who's no longer on the committee. Popup Pal puts entry tickets, trader stalls, layout listings, and door scanning in one place, with none of the committee needing to learn a CRM.
What you get
Built for model railway clubs and societies.
Every feature you need to run the event, sell the tickets, and bring the same crowd back.
More visitors through the door
Adult, concession, family, and club member tickets in one checkout. Visitors who came last year get a quiet nudge when this year's date goes live.
Every visiting layout in one place
Layouts get a listing with name, scale, operating club, and photo. Visitors plan their route before they arrive, and the floor plan stops being a guessing game.
Trader stall bookings without the chasing
Traders book and pay for their own stall. They tell you the size they need, whether they want a power point, and any extras. You approve, hold, or decline.
Door scanning on a normal phone
Volunteers scan tickets from whichever phone they brought. No hardware to buy, no app to wrestle with, and cash on the door still works alongside.
Last year's crowd, ready for next year
Visitors and traders who came once stay on your list. When you announce next year's date, they get a tap to rebook. No mail merge, no exported spreadsheet.
One set of numbers for the treasurer
Entry takings and trader fees land in one bank payout. The treasurer reconciles once, the accounts go in the AGM pack, and nothing sits on a personal card.
How it works
How a show runs on Popup Pal
Set the show up once. Open bookings. Run the day. Hold next year's traders before this year's tea urn is unplugged.
List the show
Venue, dates, ticket prices, member rates, the trader stalls you have available. The whole exhibition on one page.
Open bookings
Visitors buy tickets. Traders apply for stalls. Visiting layouts get listed. Everything sits on one dashboard the committee can share.
Run the weekend
Scan tickets at the door. Show traders to their pitch. Visitors find layouts and trade stands on their phone as they walk round the hall.
Hold the room for next year
Announce next year's date and last year's traders and visitors get a tap to rebook. The list stays with the club, not with whoever ran the spreadsheet.
FAQs
Common questions
Who owns the visitor and trader list?
The club does. The data sits with your club account, not with whichever committee member set things up. When officers change, the list stays with the club, and you can export it whenever you want.
What if a layout pulls out two weeks before the show?
You unlist them in a couple of taps and the floor plan updates. If you want to refund a trader's stall fee, you do it from the same screen, and it goes back to their card without you writing a cheque.
Can volunteers scan tickets without seeing the takings?
Yes. You can give a volunteer a door-scanning role that lets them check tickets in but keeps sales figures, trader details, and visitor data hidden. Useful for the friendly chap on Saturday morning who shouldn't have access to the bank account.
Will it work on an older committee member's phone?
It runs in a normal web browser on iPhone or Android, so anything from the last few years will be fine. There's nothing to install, and the door scanner uses the phone's camera in the same way as a banking app.
Set up next year's show in an evening.
Open ticket sales, take trader bookings, and list every visiting layout before the next committee meeting.