You know there’s too much jewelry when the 5th person that walks into your booth on the first day of a show comes in saying, “Oh look, more jewelry”. 270 artists with 57 artists on the program in the jewelry category and at least 10 other booths with some jewelry that were juried in as glass, mixed media, other, etc. and you have a huge jewelry show! In fact, of the 6 AFI’ers that I know were there, 4 of us were jewelry. Chi C Lee, Robbie Curnow, and Sharrey Dore were there with their jewelry, Steph Mader with her glass and Lucia Friedericy with her dolls.
This year’s Fall show was held in Seattle at the Smith Cove Cruise terminal on the north side of Elliott Bay the weekend before Thanksgiving, Nov 18-20. The wine tasting area had a terrific view of downtown Seattle. The show is sponsored by the NW Art Alliance which was founded in 1989. The show is starting to attract a larger audience again and last year was our best show of the year, so definitely one we wanted to keep on the list for this year.
A little history, Best of the Northwest used to host some of the premier shows in the Puget Sound region, one each spring and one each fall. Due to some organizational issues and lack of attention to marketing the shows really started declining several years ago. In 2009 a new Director was hired and to give credit where credit is really due, Pamela has done a wonderful job of starting to restore this Seattle tradition. Marketing has increased dramatically under her leadership, attendance at shows continues to grow and she has done a wonderful job of bringing the Best of the NW shows back from the brink of total failure. The shows have jumped around a bit over the past few years, we’ve had 3 different locations in the past 4 years for the spring show and 2 different locations in the past 3 years for the Fall shows but it does appear that they are finally getting to be more consistent. The Fall and Spring shows are held at different venues due to the size of the shows. The fall venue is the Smith Cove Cruise terminal and due to Homeland Security regulations there are some restrictions/regulations that make parking a challenge. Load in / load out is a bit tedious, due to parking limitations and if you are on the second floor, having to use one of two elevators which can lead to long lines waiting to move your booth setup and products. Load in is a little more staggered over an 8 hour time period, so not as much of an issue, load out is an exercise in patience.
This year’s show changed dates AFTER applications were already being accepted by Zapplication, no explanation was ever provided, even after contacting the show. For the past several years this show was the second weekend in November, Pamela now wants to continue to hold it the weekend before Thanksgiving. Apps were reopened a couple of times which may explain why there was such a high number of jewelers, it seems like they needed to fill spots. At $600/booth, (more for corner spots, electricity, etc.) plus paying for parking, etc. this is not an inexpensive show to do.
Artist amenities – none. There were lots of volunteers around, but there wasn’t even water or coffee available for the artists. Show hours were reasonable, 10-6 on Friday/Saturday, 10-5 on Sunday. Weather was a threatening factor this year with the possibility of snow in the forecast all week (Seattle residents do not venture out in snow). Friday night as we were driving home we were hearing reports of snow in the Everett area and other areas north of the city. Factor in the expectation of freezing temps Friday night and we were kind of wondering what our 30 mile drive into the city was going to be like on Saturday morning. It turned out to be a non-issue for drivers on Saturday morning, however, crowds were very light for a Saturday and much lighter than last year. Overall it did seem total attendance was down for the show, but it may have just been more evenly spread over all 3 days, I couldn’t really tell.
After the spring show, Steph Mader wrote a show review and commented that none of the artists were complaining about sales. Unfortunately this was not the case with the fall show. When taking to other artists, sales were all over the board, there were at least a few who didn’t make booth, a few who barely covered expenses, but at least a couple of artists that had great shows including one jeweler who had a repeat customer spend $5000, plus he had several other large sales. Most seemed to be down substantially by Saturday night, not sure of all the end results on Sunday, quite frankly that turned out to be our best day and I didn’t have time to leave the booth very often which was a good problem to have.
Sales Friday and Saturday were about 40% lower than last year for us, leading to the feeling that this was a mediocre show for sales. Sunday’s crowd started slowly, but at least for us was the best buying crowd we had all weekend and seemed larger than it was Sunday last year. We sold more on Sunday than on Friday and Saturday combined which resulted in only being down 10% from 2010, not the 40% we thought we were going to be when we went home Saturday night. In the end our profit was about the same as the spring show which is a 2 day event, vs. the fall show which requires 3 days which has us concerned about next spring’s show which is resuming the 3 day instead of 2 day format and raising booth fees by $100. Options for fall art shows (excluding all the little Christmas craft shows) are extremely limited in the Pacific NW so as long as our sales stay reasonable it’s a show we’ll continue to do.
Comments
I'm also wondering why they have Friday from 10AM to 6PM - wouldn't it be more logical to set up on Friday then open from 4pm to 9 or 10pm?
2012 - just last weekend
Stephen - are you commenting on 2011 or 2012?
As a first timer I may have expected too much, but I was very disappointed with the low volume of shoppers, and more so with the problems navigating the access to the hall. From the promotional photos, it had looked like a prime location - which it did not turn out to be. For the high booth price, I expected more.
Mostly it's the restricted parking issue, customers are required to ride a shuttle from a remote parking lot. We also have the issue that you cannot take public transportation to the site, can't walk/bicycle to the site from a bus stop, etc. Special passes are needed if a client purchases a large sculpture,painting, etc. and needs to bring their vehicle to the building to pick it up, overall 90% of the customers seemed to be okay with all of this, but there are always those that complain.
Ruth, how does Homeland Sucurity make it tough on customers? What do they do, frisk them as they come in? Or do they have to walk through metal detectors? I was just wondering.
Jacki B
Steph - totally understand your comments and I do know that we "lucked out" on Sunday with our sales and know that it was a miserable show for you. I talked to an artist on Sunday afternoon who drove from Montana, across 5 mountain passes to be in the show and didn't cover expenses, OUCH!! Not a fun time of year to do that drive and then to have a lousy show really hurts.
My opinion is that both the Spring and Fall shows need to be 2 days not 3 days and the booth fees need to be cut. I did ask Pamela why the Spring show was going back to a 3 day format, she said it was because she had feedback from some of the artists that if they were going to go to all the trouble to set up the booth they would rather have a 3 day vs. a 2 day show. WHAT???? I don't know which artists she spoke to but that sure wasn't the consensus I've heard from other artists. Pamela is working on marketing to bring in whole sale buyers for the Friday of the Spring show but I still am taking the attitude that "I'll believe it when I see it", having done Spring for 4 years, 2 years when it was in the 3 day format and having one of those years ending with a miserable $28 in sales on Friday, didn't even pay for gas to get downtown and parking in downtown Seattle for the day.
I hear Joe talking about driving less, I look at the options in Seattle for March and Novemeber and right now Best of the NW shows have a higher potential for us than most other shows combined. I know not everyone agrees, thus far we've managed to pull each of our Best of the NW shows out with a profit, sometimes, like last Fall and this past Spring a substantial profit, sometimes a lot less, but for us it's a local show so low expenses. I couldn't recommend this show for anyone who has to travel, but for locals it's still one of the few quality shows in March and November.
That show was the worst of the year for me, so this will be a "bah humbug" comment. I'm hoping it will make Joe think twice about next year. Friday and Saturday were dead, and Sunday only slightly better. The photographer across from me sold one piece, plus one of his print bins. The jeweler next to me said sales were slow. A paint a couple doors down, who did really great at the spring show, was not selling well. Artists were wandering the aisles all weekend, so what does that tell you? We were making jokes about finding a potter with round stuff so we could try bowling in the aisles. I think the excuse that the building is large and it takes a lot of people to fill it is just the point... if you don't have enough traffic that there are a reasonable number of people in the aisles, then the show is too big for the number of attendees you can attract, yes? I think the show would be much better if the venue was smaller and the number of artists was reduced. It would be easier for the show to scale up as it got its reputation back and the numbers increased. Now I'm taking my grumpy butt to bed.
Really fun to read this show review! Imagine having a show on the edge of Seattle, close to the water. I'm glad, too that your show wass a good one.
November is definitely not outside show weather here, way too rainy and cold. That's why they held it at the Smith Cove Cruise terminal, an indoor venue. It's the same location used by the cruise lines between May - October for the cruise ships as they journey to Alaska, it's a great facility, upstairs is much warmer than downstairs, but the location is a bit difficult for customers due to Homeland security requirements around the Port of Seattle.
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