I feel that I am at a bit of a crossroads with the work I display. I think I have way too much variety in my booth. As a photographer I shoot both Black and white and color. On my walls I primarily display color work with usually 12-15 larger pieces displayed. The problem is that when it comes to the browse bins I have somewhere between 100-150 different prints available in two different sizes. I am thinking that this is too overwhelming for visitors to my booth. It just becomes so difficult to edit myself down.
Has anyone else had to deal with these issues? How did things go for you once you did edit your variety down? Did sales improve?
I also wouldn't mind some input from other photographers in regards to showing both black and white and color. Do you think that this is too much for art show patrons to process in one booth? Would I be better off just ditching the black and white and going strictly color?
Replies
Eric, lots of good info from the previous posts, for sure. I am a firm believer that too much work in the booth
interferes with sales. You will exhaust the interested people as they look at everything, available in many sizes. Make the bins slim -- maybe images that are not in the frames to show your variety.
Any chance you listened to our most recent podcast: "Who is Buying at the Shows and Why?" In that episode 3 people who attend and buy at lots of art fairs give some great opinions on crowded booths. You might find it helpful.
Here is my favorite photo of print bin overload:
You can show both color and black & white, group them together, of course. Also, you might experiment with showing one or the other rather than both. When we started doing shows the consensus of other photographers is that no one bought black and white.
My husband had "grown up" in a black and white darkroom and loved shooting and printing black and white photos, so when we'd go shooting he'd have one camera with color film and the other with black and white (yep, these were the olden days). So we showed only color but he had some black and white images he loved and he started slipping in a few black and whites and they started to sell, in fact better than the color photos. With the color he looked too much like the other guys, but with the black and white he really stood out. Within a year we were showing only black and white, got into the best shows he really differentiated himself from the competition.
That being said, color will always sell better, I believe, and some of our friends made a lot more money, but we got the good shows regularly and had a following and were able to build a pretty stable business.
Thanks for all the responses. Definitely gives me something to think about.
I definitely can see where too many options can be overwhelming. It is kind of like looking over a Cheesecake Factory menu. There are so many options it is hard to decide on what you want. Plus it also has to be kept in mind that I am in shows that can have as many as 250 or more other artists that are all competing for the attention of the show attendees.
I am considering the possibility of dramatically cutting back the print bins. However, in their place I was thinking of putting a stand with a couple tablets that have a catalog app on them. That way my work could be browsed much more quickly by the areas that most interest the customer. This allows me to reduce visual clutter but still offer variety. It would be an interesting experiment since I have never seen any other artist attempt this.
Hi
The larger size should be for images that you sale in the regular bases or to offer the unframed version. The smaller size you show as much as you can. The best way to handle is to not replace them the slow images after they sold. Also anything you had not sold in 12 months you may want to pull out. If you have matted take the image out and replace it with something you sale in the regular bases. The problem with the theory is that some images may not sale all year long and then starting to move later on.
Too much visual stimulation in such a small 10x10 area?
This is an interesting topic. This year I've noticed that my bins also may be too full. I'm a printmaker. I only keep 2 to 3 of each image in my bin at one time, but I have lot of different images to offer. Maybe I should weed out some of the older images. It would be an interesting experiment to try at my next show.
I think that 100-150 is too many prints. I keep around 10 to 15 images in my bin. I am not saying that is the perfect number. But I try to keep my best sellers available.
I gave up my print bins completely this year. I do offer unframed prints by order but they are not in the booth. It may be different for you because my best sellers are my panos which I did not have in the print bins. Hopefully you are keeping track of how much money you make on framed vs. unframed. Looking at that data was a real eye opener for me. As for black and white, I do all color but I have some hanging that are more neutral than others. I hang them all together in one section of the booth and the vibrant color ones are front and center because I believe color brings the people in.
Hello Eric, you probably do have too many prints in your bins for people to look through. People don't just start to go through the bins and stop when they find a photo they like. They think they have to see them all before they buy one. I find that I do that myself. Then, after looking at them all many people walk off bleary eyed. Most of the photographers booth's that I have spent time in have narrowed the selection down so that within a few minutes you have seen everything they have. I think they do better with less. Try scaling back some and see what happens.