PopUp Republic

What Is a Pop-Up?

By definition, a pop-up is any event that is temporary and involves people taking part in it as hosts and attendees. As long as it has a given start and end date, it can be considered a pop-up. But as with just about everything in life, there are exceptions. For example, a driver’s education course—while temporary in that it is likely to have a beginning and ending class—is not a pop-up, since it is an educational event that is only applicable to a certain demographic of individuals (those who are learning to drive). A lemonade stand, however, is a pop-up, since it is a business offering a product that is available to the public for a short period of time.

What constitutes a pop-up has a complex answer. In England, farmers markets are always considered sectors within the pop-up industry. In the United States, an explanation is needed as to why this was so in the U.K., and why it should likewise be deemed appropriate in the United States. The answer to the question “What is a pop-up?” probably can only truly be answered by the reply given by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, when asked to describe what is meant by “hard-core pornography,” replied that it was hard to define, “but I know it when I see it.”

Using our stipulation that, whatever it is, its core element is that a pop-up is ephemeral, we have found ourselves debating the inclusion of food trucks. Are food trucks, which usually are at different locations at different times and can often appear ...