I did not get into any of the heavy hitters for that weekend. I backed up with Naperville and Three Rivers/Art in the Park, in Fort Wayne. I was wait listed for Naperville initially, then called off the wait list yesterday (probably because someone else DID get into one of the heavy hitter shows. Sniff.)
I did Naperville last year and it was grim, but it WAS 100 degrees out. I have no idea if it is better in cooler weather. Naperville would be local, therefore no hotel costs and little gas. Fort Wayne is ~ 4 hours away. (this is not the June Fort Wayne Covington show). The Three Rivers Art in the Park is part of a larger festival, which concept I generally avoid. But apart from that, I know nothing about it. I checked here and did not see any reviews for Fort Wayne. I went through those on Naperville. Nothing in Art Fair reviews for either.
I wish I could say I could choose among some better shows, but I can't. :( Thanks for your input.
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Ft. Wayne is my hometown and I even interviewed a few years back to be Exec Director of this event. Alas, they didn't want me (sniff), but things turn out for the best.
This is a well-attended event in a nice park downtown and is part of a much bigger festival (think parades, greasy food booths (that I believe they call "grease alley"), kids activities, fireworks) -- but lots of people who might like your lower priced work. They are conservative, but to counter Robert's review more people do buy jewelry than photography so it might work for you. Ft. Wayne is an inexpensive place to stay. Let me know if you choose it.
With the time lag since I last did Ft. Wayne, my view of it is more like ancient history rather than anything current. The guy who ran it when I first start doing it was a prince of a guy. All I can remember is his name was Tom.
About 1991 or 1992, I had first done the GI Joe and Barbie work from my Ball State days, and had interesting success with the pieces. Some of the work was controversial, to say the least. Some folks found part of the work controversial, and a few found it highly offensive. I had sold one piece to a priest in Chicago the week before, who was going to write a sermon around it and I gave him written permission to reproduce it for the church bulletin. Gutsy guy ;-)
Meanwhile in Ft. Wayne, a patron walks in, sees the work, goes ballistic, gets in my face screaming with spittle flying everywhere, and won't stop yelling long enough to listen. A couple of others came in and got POed but not to that degree. At the end of the show I saw the director, and apologized to him for the ruckus I had created. He said not to worry, he knew within 30 minutes of the show starting what I had. He told the complainers about a similar situation at a show in NY, and he was going to the same thing as they did; nothing. He told them it was a free country and if they didn't like what I had, to just walk out of the booth. If they had kids they were concerened about, then they should keep their kids under closer watch. He told me after that, that I was already pre-juried into next year's show :-)
I did the show for about 10 years or so, but started seeing diminishing returns after 7-9 years, and the show was under new management, so it was time to pull the plug on it after I lost money the last two years. When the show was arranged around the fountain, it was pleasant to do. When they moved it out to the middle of the street it lost some of its charm.
Ft. Wayne has grown considerably since then with massive development along the interstate, and a new show at Jefferson Mall besides the one in Covington. I did better at the one in Covington, but it's so difficult to find their applications I finally gave up on it.
I was at Naperville last year also. Grim is the understatement ;-) I used to do the Ft.Wayne show years ago and finally gave up on it. It's a very conservative and low spending crowd with lots of stuff on a stick, or at least it was when I stopped doing it.
Fine art doesn't do well there. There were three photographers, including myself, within 5 booths of each other the last time I did it. One guy did these traditional B&W multiple exposure darkroom prints like Jerry Uelsmann, exquisite work. I had some color work and 19th century photo process prints called van Dyke Brown prints on hand made watercolor paper. The lady next to me had snapshot style photos, mostly zoo animals and flowers. She had a large shot of a tiger with terrible technical qualities, lint on the negative, color correction off, lighting problems, and so on. The B&W photographer and myself bombed. Guess who sold 4 copies of the tiger and made as much off those as the other two guys combined for the entire show? A shot of a lounging tiger in a cage is just about on a par with a velvet Elvis painting.
AFSB doesn't give very high marks to the show. I had thought about reapplying for Ft. Wayne but decided to pass on it for yet another year. It's been so long, I can't remember what year I was last there but probably at least 10 years ago is a good guess.
I'd be inclined to stick close to home and do the Naperville show just because of the lower expense, in spite of last year's disaster. That heat was terrible and would have been worse if the group around me hadn't decided to tie our rear tarps together and create a sold shade behind us. Having a heat wave two years in a row doesn't seem likely and maybe there will be rebound from the ones who didn't go last year. At this point, I wouldn't recommend either one but it's hard to say no to a show that's virtually next door. Good luck and let us know what you decide.
Can anyone tell me about the Fort Wayne show?