I haven't been allowed to compete for years now, but when I did I'd always get done early.
Here in New England we require that the entries be boxed for shipping and arrive at a coordinators shop by the Friday before the judging.
The coordinator loads a vehicle and delivers them to the judging site.
So, you can't be too last minute.
This accomplishing two things; the entrant also gets at least a taste of packing for shipping if they want to go on to national; and we are able to get a handle on how many entries there are so the judges can allocate enough time. We typically have 8 - 12 entries in the PRINT competition. It's nice when you hit that tenth one so you can give an honorable mention as well as the top three places.