Amdur Productions has been running a show in the upscale suburb of Buffalo Grove for 15 years, around the middle of July. According to an article in the Journal Online, a paper that serves Chicago's Northwest Suburbs, the village of Buffalo Grove has recently signed a contract with Howard Alan Events to host another show in the village.
Lots of readers here live in the Chicago area, you might find this article useful: http://www.journal-topics.com/business/article_a6ec947e-7a80-11e4-a977-cb2eddbf0190.html
Replies
I doubt this town can support 2 art fairs, so I don’t think both will exist in tandem for long.
I notice the last line of the story mentions the town would receive 23% of all artists sales for the first year of the HA show. It's not exactly clear if that means HA's sales of booth spaces or what the artist's themselves sell. Either way it looks like a slugfest of the heavyweight promoters for venues.
I really doubt if it would be a commission on artist sales. Has HA ever run a commission show?
I would expect that every town gets a cut of artist fees from shows. Otherwise why do it? They need to provide policing, ambulance coverage, etc.
No, Linnea, I don't think so. What the towns get are more people buying gas, eating in the restaurants, stopping in the shops, staying in the motels, leading to more taxes being paid. More indirectly perhaps is people coming who have never been there before who like the place and think of moving there, raising the profile of the town.
We did the show once. Stayed nearby and enjoyed the restaurants and nearby parks.
Oh, I realize they get those ancillary benefits. But a cut of booth fees is probably expected as well to cover direct municipal costs. Sales tax revenues can't be counted upon to pay for ambulance service, police, trash pickup.