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Five jobs, both ways

Selling vendor tables with Jotform or with Captain Expo.

Jotform is a good form builder, and plenty of shows run on one. But the form is only the first step. Here are five jobs between opening applications and load-in, done both ways.

Create your eventStart at job 01

Free to use · No monthly payments · 5% of sales, that's all

01Applications

Vendors apply for a table on your map.

An application form is a list of questions. The one it can’t ask properly is the one that matters most: which table do you want.

02Availability

The map shows every vendor which tables are taken.

Every organizer running on forms keeps a second document that says which tables are taken. That document records decisions. It doesn’t stop a second sale.

03Payment

The pay link goes out with the approval.

The gap between “you’re in” and “you’re paid up” is where most of an organizer’s admin lives: the invoice, the reminder, the second reminder, and the reconciliation afterwards.

04Floor plan

AI detection marks out the tables on your plan.

The floor plan is the most useful thing you have, and attaching it as a PDF turns it into a picture. A picture can’t price a table, and it can’t be corrected once it’s in someone’s inbox.

05Vendor CRM

Everyone who booked or applied is in your vendor list.

Every show generates the same four emails: applications are open, you’re approved, your balance is due, here’s your load-in time. On forms and a spreadsheet, all four are a mail merge you assemble by hand.

With Jotform

  1. Build the form and hope you asked the right questions the first time.
  2. Add a table field. It has to be free text, because the form can’t see your floor plan.
  3. Read back “table 14, or 22, or anywhere near the door” and work out what they meant.
  4. Copy the answer across to wherever you’re actually tracking tables.

You end up with: a sentence in a cell

With Captain Expo

  1. Publish the event. The floor plan is the application form.
  2. A vendor browses the live map and sees tier, size and price on every table.
  3. They apply for the table they picked, so the request arrives as a place on your floor.
  4. Their email, what they sell and the tables they picked land in your review queue, with their Instagram on the full application.

You end up with: table 14, corner, $260

With Jotform

  1. Export the submissions into a spreadsheet.
  2. Mark tables as sold by hand, each time an approval goes out.
  3. Two vendors ask for table 14 an hour apart. Nothing stops you telling both of them yes.
  4. Find out at load-in.

You end up with: a list that can’t stop a second sale

With Captain Expo

  1. The map is the only record of what’s taken, and it’s the same map the vendor is looking at.
  2. Starting checkout holds the table for thirty-five minutes, so nobody else can buy it in the meantime.
  3. Walk away and the hold expires. The table comes back without you touching anything.
  4. Two vendors can’t both end up with one table. A payment that arrives after the table sold again is refunded automatically.

You end up with: a floor that cannot be oversold

With Jotform

  1. Approve by email, one vendor at a time.
  2. Raise an invoice somewhere else entirely, and get the amount right by hand.
  3. Chase it. Chase it again the week before the show.
  4. Match the payments back against your sheet so you know who still owes you.

You end up with: four tools and a reconcile

With Captain Expo

  1. Approve the application and the pay link goes out with it, tied to a hold that expires.
  2. Or turn on instant booking and the vendor pays straight after picking the table.
  3. The money goes to your own Stripe account, under your own name. You’re the merchant of record.
  4. The table shows as sold when the payment clears, and your totals update with it.
ApprovedEmailed a link to payAwaiting paymentPaid $260.00

You end up with: one thread, decision to receipt

With Jotform

  1. Attach the plan as a PDF and hope the numbering is legible at print size.
  2. Vendors download it, zoom in, and squint at table numbers next to a price list in another file.
  3. Change a price or move a wall, and now there is a new PDF to send.
  4. From that moment on, everybody is looking at a slightly different version.

You end up with: floor-plan-v3-final-2.pdf

With Captain Expo

  1. Upload the PDF or an image. AI detection finds the tables and marks them out for you.
  2. You correct a drawn floor instead of starting from a blank one. Or draw the whole thing yourself, unlimited and free.
  3. Vendors get an interactive map: zoom in, hover a table for its type, size and price, click to pick it.
  4. Change a price and the next vendor to look sees the new one. There’s no version two to send.
AI detection · 1 credit a runStandard · $180Corner · $260

You end up with: one plan, always the current one

With Jotform

  1. Export the list again, because it’s changed since the last export.
  2. Paste it into a mail merge and build the segment by hand in a filter.
  3. Send, and hope the filter was right.
  4. Track unsubscribes and bounces yourself, forever, across every list you ever exported.

You end up with: a list that is already stale

With Captain Expo

  1. Every vendor who has ever applied to one of your shows is already a contact, keyed by email.
  2. Choose who gets it by what they sell, their state or city, a show they took a table at, a show you turned them away from, or your own tags.
  3. Write once and send under your own name and your own reply-to address.
  4. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses are left out automatically.
Sells · Pokémon · 184State · OR · 227Took a table at · Spring Show · 63

You end up with: a list that stays current

Five jobs, five outcomes

What you end up with, once the show is over.

Five jobs, and what each one leaves you with when a vendor emails in March asking which table they had last year.

01A sentence in a cellTable 14, corner, $260
02A list that can’t stop a second saleA floor that cannot be oversold
03Four tools and a reconcileOne thread, decision to receipt
04floor-plan-v3-final-2.pdfOne plan, always the current one
05A list that is already staleA vendor list that stays current
To be fair

When Jotform is the better tool.

If what you need is a form - a waiver, a survey, a call for entries, an intake sheet with conditional logic - it’s one of the best there is, and Captain Expo doesn’t try to be one. What it can’t do is hold a table, price a floor, or stop a table being sold twice, because none of those are things a form is for.

That isn’t a flaw in Jotform. It’s the part of the show a form leaves for you to do by hand.

Free to use. No monthly payments. 5% of sales, that’s all.

Unlimited events and unlimited tables, free. The 5% comes out of your side when a table sells. Your vendors never see a fee from us.