It may have widespread use globally but within the community sector, it has become to a certain extent compulsory.

Will anyone take your organisation seriously without that aluminium vinyl comfort tower of identity that doesn’t like the outdoors?

Could it be a surface awareness or reflection functioning properly only within four walls protected from any wind or person who may breeze past it - balancing delicately with an urge to lean forward as if there was a need for discourse.

We have had our battles on occasions when our branded companion refuses to sit upright on rattling with volume as it unexpectedly decides it has had enough descending into its casket.

The question is, when did the Pop Up stand become the essential prop for community organisations?

Who founded the Pop Up Stand Social Club?

Surely it is the reality conversation sector populated by a friendly meet and great people who don’t need to have a two-dimensional visual introduction?

Oh, the horror of attending a trade fair or community gathering without our pop-up stand – we could look unprofessional next to our neighbour or ‘rival’ organisation with their branded badges and pens.

The world is a far different place than it was when Beyond Skin started in 2004, not a great deal worse but different as good people continue to do good deeds against the consistent backdrop of greed, envy and power.

It is evident change needs to happen and those changes can be small.

As Beyond Skin parts company with our beloved pop-up stands you can judge it as a bold symbolic change, a publicity stunt, a madcap notion or maybe it is just an excuse for us artists to claim back our right to be creative, not bound to the sector frames and funders expectations.

The pop-up stand is itself a creative tool and piece of art – but art has a purpose and sometimes no purpose.

So as it is so it goes. Goodbye Pop Up stand, you have been a companion, a familiar face, a focus for comedy and sometimes a right pain in the arse but it is time for us to part.

And the Pop Up Stand would say:

“I have been with you through the ups and the downs. Standing proudly through the good times of music, art, dance, dialogue, laughter and achievement but also through the hard times – tedious powerpoint presentations, preaching to the converted gatherings and speeches that would bore my metal pole to rust. As part of the community arts family, I have witnessed your frustration conforming your creativity to fit within community sector traditional formats and funding parameters. I encourage you to recapture your passion for arts in social change and if people don’t get the artistic process or outcome so what? Art is subjective and a conversation trigger.

Indeed the world has changed and it is time for organisations to adapt and rethink, but I am going to have to leave you to find your own way. I feel my job has been done and it is time for you to take a stand. Pop I feel was short for popular and that I witnessed as peoples flaw and need. Work for the greater good – not to be popular and for sure you will see the changes you seek".