Back in May they were just graduating from college so weren't sure at that time if they'd hold another show. But they did - and yesterday's was held on the second floor of The Village Gate, a former factory in Neighborhood of the Arts section of the city. It's an atrium filled with sculpture, artwork and plants, lit by center skylights and not enough electric lights.
I know they had way more applications than they had room for but they narrowed it down to a diverse 50+ vendors. When they started billing their shows as "indie", I was skeptical, I admit. But there really is stuff at their shows you don't see elsewhere. I'm definitely one of the older vendors - old enough to be the mother of most of them. But that doesn't bother me a bit - because I only feel 30 in my head, which would make me more like, um, the older sister. :-)
As I wrote in my show survey at the end, I wish they would offer more time for set-up. I need a good 2 hours just to set up my space, so opening the doors to vendors a full 3 hours before the start of the show is what works best for me. Yesterday's show offered a 2 hour window before the show but we went 30 minutes earlier in case the doors were opened earlier - and the building staff was unlocking the doors as we arrived, so I'm very glad we went early.
There's an elevator, thank goodness, or you'd find me lying on the floor with back spasms about now. The room is irregularly shaped with vendors around the edge and a few in the middle. There was plenty of room in front of my space to spill forward a bit without being any further out than my neighbor, because of the odd shape of the room. Electric outlets were located in the interior overlook areas but the organizers had a lot of heavy duty, very long extension cords they ran out to the vendor locations, securely taped to the floor. I was glad I brought extra lighting. No matter the venue, it's impossible to have too much lighting, right?
From what I saw I thought the show was well advertised. They use social media strongly, which is critical for their generation. (And me!) They gave swag bags to the first 50 customers, containing donations from various artists - and true to their May show, there was a line of customers waiting for the opening of the doors.
Another promotion was they gave each artist a dozen or more raffle tickets to give to customers who spent $10 or more. There were to be 3 winners and my understanding is the prizes were additional swag bags, meaning the winners received little somethings from various artists. I thought that was a great idea.
There was rarely a time when there were no customers in my space. I made more per hour in the 6 hours of this show than I sometimes make at multi-day shows.
The fee is inexpensive, vendors are treated well. Load-in and out was average, parking for customers was plentiful.
Not to shoot myself in the foot by temping YOU to apply, but their next show will be May 7, 2011, and a new venue has been secured - the Main Street Armory in Rochester.
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