How to plan a roster for a pop-up or market stall

Written by Roster Flow. Published 22 August 2026.

A weekend farmers market, a night market, a pop-up in a shopping centre or a stall at the local show can reach customers who never walk past the shop. It also takes staff away from the shop for a day, to a site with no back room, no sink of its own and a set time to be packed up and gone.

Most roster mistakes on a stall day come from rostering the trading hours and nothing else. Then someone puts up the gazebo alone before their shift starts, or the last person on packs down by themselves. This article works through the day in the order it happens.

Roster the whole day, not the trading hours

Start by writing down every stage of a stall day and the time each one takes. If you have run a stall before, time a real market day rather than guessing. The table shows the stages for a food stall, with example times.

That whole day, not the trading hours, is the one to roster and to cost. The shift hours calculator totals the shifts once you have the times.

Decide how many people each stage needs

Work out the numbers stage by stage.

• Set up and pack down: at least two. A gazebo, weights and trestle tables are awkward for one person, and two people halve the time.
• The busiest hours: everyone. Many markets are busiest in the first few hours, before the best stock sells out. Check your own takings by hour after the first few markets.
• Cover for breaks. A stall of two becomes a stall of one during each break. Decide whether that works at that time of day, or add a third person for the middle of the market.
• Someone in charge. Name who runs the stall, with the float, the stock count and the market manager’s phone number. Skills matrix rostering shows who is trained to run a shift away from the shop.

Check what the market and the council require

For food, a stall is a food business like any other. Food Standards Australia New Zealand explains that businesses selling food at temporary events like markets need to meet the same food safety requirements as other food businesses, regardless of their size or how often they sell food. Food businesses using temporary premises must comply with the Food Standards Code, including Standard 3.2.2, and Standard 3.2.2A may also apply to a food service business handling unpackaged, ready to eat, potentially hazardous food.

FSANZ also says you must notify your local council before you start, and that you or someone in your business may need formal training, such as a certified food safety supervisor, so check with the council. Everyone in the business who handles food needs to know how to keep it safe to eat. For the roster, that means:

• A trained food handler on every stall shift, and any certified food safety supervisor your council requires on the roster or within reach.
• Nobody handling food while sick. FSANZ’s advice is not to handle food if you are sick, so know who could replace each person before the day, not at 6:00 that morning.
• Time for handwashing and temperature checks in the setup stage, not squeezed in after the first customers arrive.
• The market’s own conditions, such as bump-in and bump-out times, where vehicles can go and how gazebos must be secured, read before the roster is built.

Travel to the stall and the award

Where staff start matters. If everyone meets at the shop and travels together in the van, the travel is part of the shift. If staff go straight from home to the market, some awards pay for the extra travel. The rules differ between awards, and which award covers your stall staff depends on your business, so confirm it with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool.

Two things follow. First, record where each person starts on the roster, because travel time cannot be worked out without it. Second, a casual called in for only the two busiest hours of a Retail or Fast Food stall is still paid for 3, so give the shift setup or pack down as well. Current rates are on the General Retail, Fast Food and Restaurant award pay rates pages, and rostering off-site catering jobs covers travelling as a team in more detail.

Early setups and the span of hours

Markets open early, and setup starts earlier. Under the General Retail Industry Award, ordinary hours can be worked from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm on a Saturday and from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm on a Sunday (clause 15.1, Table 2). For full-time, part-time and casual employees, hours worked outside the span of ordinary hours, other than shiftwork, are paid as overtime (clause 21.2, Table 10).

That makes an early Sunday setup expensive. A casual who starts at 7:00 on a Sunday to set up for an 8:00 opening has two hours outside the span before 9:00. Before accepting a stall with an early bump-in, check what your award says about those hours, and see whether staff can start later, inside the span. Other awards treat early hours differently, and rostering around deliveries covers early starts in more detail.

Breaks on a stall day

A stall of two or three people has nobody spare, so plan the breaks on the roster rather than waiting for a quiet moment. Under the General Retail Industry Award, break entitlements depend on the hours worked in the shift (clause 16.2, Table 3):

• 4 hours or more but no more than 5: one 10 minute paid rest break.
• More than 5 but less than 7: one 10 minute paid rest break and one unpaid meal break of 30 to 60 minutes.
• 7 or more but less than 10: two 10 minute paid rest breaks, one in each half of the shift, and one unpaid meal break of 30 to 60 minutes.

The same award says the timing of breaks is to be included in the roster (clause 16.3), and an employer cannot require an employee to take a break in the first or last hour of work, or to work more than 5 hours without a meal break (clause 16.5). Stagger the breaks so the stall is never down to one person in the rush.

Heat, lifting and weather

Safe Work Australia’s working in heat page says a person conducting a business or undertaking has a duty to keep workers and the workplace safe from the risks of working in heat. Its model Code of Practice on hazardous manual tasks says manual tasks such as lifting, pushing, pulling and carrying can be hazardous, so the risks must be assessed and managed. Check with your state or territory regulator whether the code has legal effect where you are.

• Roster two people for loading, setup and pack down, and keep a trolley in the vehicle.
• Plan shade, water and break cover for hot days, and rotate who stands in the sun.
• Check the forecast before the roster is final, and decide in advance who calls whom if the market is cancelled.
• Do not leave a young or new worker to set up or pack down alone.

Stock, the float and the packing list

A written routine stops the morning being lost to a missing cable.

1. Write a packing listGazebo, weights, tables, cloths, signs, price tags, bags, the float, the payment terminal and its charger, gloves, sanitiser, a probe thermometer and the chilled boxes.
2. Put the loading on someone’s shiftRoster the loading the day before or the morning of the market, with a second person checking it against the list.
3. Write a short handoverNote what sold out, what was left and any problems with the site for the next market. Shift handover notes shows what to include.

A worked example: a bakery’s Saturday market stall

A bakery’s counter staff are covered by the General Retail Industry Award. On Saturdays it runs a stall at a farmers market. Stallholders can arrive from 6:30, the market trades from 8:00 to 13:00, and the site must be clear by 14:00. The van is loaded with everything except the bread on Friday afternoon, and the owner, who is not on the payroll, drives it to the market.

Kai is a part-time employee whose written regular pattern of work already includes Saturday from 7:00 to 13:30, so only the place of work changes. Lee is a casual.

Kai normally travels 15 minutes each way to the shop, and the market is 35 minutes from Kai’s home. Clause 19.5 pays travel time in excess of the normal trip, both ways: 70 minutes to and from the market, less the usual 30, is 40 minutes, paid at Kai’s ordinary rate because it is a Saturday. Lee lives 10 minutes from the market and 30 minutes from the shop, so there is no extra travel time to pay.

Every hour of both shifts falls inside the Saturday span of 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. Kai works 6 hours, so the shift has a paid rest break and an unpaid meal break under Table 3, with the meal break 4 hours in, inside the 5 hour limit in clause 16.5. Lee’s 5 hours carry one paid rest break and are above the 3 hour casual minimum. Setup always has two people, and so does the stall during each break. Paid time for the day is 6 hours and 40 minutes for Kai and 5 hours for Lee, 11 hours and 40 minutes in all, the figure to set against the stall’s takings.

If the market moved to Sunday, the roster would need rebuilding: the Sunday span starts at 9:00 am, so a 7:00 setup would fall outside it, and Kai’s travel time would be paid at 150% of the ordinary rate.

Roster Flow keeps stall days on the same roster as the shop: availability and leave from staff phones, the roster published to everybody at once, clock ins that become timesheets, and approved hours sent to Xero, MYOB or a CSV file.

A market stall roster checklist

• Every stage is on the roster: loading, travel, setup, trade, pack down and return
• Setup and pack down have at least two people
• The market’s bump-in and bump-out times and conditions have been read
• The council has been notified and any food safety supervisor requirement checked
• A trained food handler is on every stall shift
• Each person’s starting point is on the roster, so travel time can be worked out under the award
• Early setups are checked against the span of hours in your award
• No casual is rostered for less than the minimum engagement
• Breaks are on the roster, with cover so nobody is alone in the rush
• Shade, water and a plan for bad weather are sorted

Sources

• Food Standards Australia New Zealand: temporary food premises
• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Commission: Fast Food Industry Award 2020 [MA000003]
• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Safe Work Australia: working in heat
• Safe Work Australia: model Code of Practice, hazardous manual tasks
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award

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