Dear Artists, I am writing this post to ask for your help on an issue. My small town has a big annual festival that includes craft booths. They are about to make a big mistake on the show layout. They want to mix the craft booths in with commercial vendors and food wagons. I've been asked to give a presentation on this Friday, March 20, to tell them this is just plain wrong for craftspeople. I have my list of points to make, but would like to hear from you so i am sure i have not missed anything important.
Its not the level of craft that we are all used to dealing with, but still, these craftspeople need to have a good show. So, i am asking you to act as an advisory committee since the show does not have one. Please give me your opinions as to why this is not a good idea asap. Here's the festival details:
this is a street festival that takes up most of the town. Its on Main Street and 3 other locations in the city. Attendance is 200,000. Its a strawberry festival. It does include a carnival, carny games, commercial vendors selling all kinds of junk. 2 music stages, parade, strawberry treats, non profit booths, and typical carnival food wagons. There are 60 spaces available for craftspeople.
I think its a huge mistake to mix the craft booths in with the food wagons and commercial vendors. Please help me with my presentation by giving me your thoughts on why this is wrong. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
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Oh, we do so need our own area, as do the buy-sell people, we totally contradict each other, generally their prices are so low, which in turn makes ours look so high, when in reality they are not. The space apart does not need to be so far away, just some distance to create seperate shopping areas, good signage will help delinating the areas, this affair needs all kinds of vendors but there must be a seperation and it will be necessary for all who attend, some only want inexpensive stuff, others are coming for the creative art work, DO NOT MIX THE TWO = EVER
Hi Mary,
Unfortunately you will have to take baby steps on this one. I've been actively involved in organizing events and have found established events are very difficult to make changes in. In your case, with a successful past attendance of 200,000 - it's not likely the organizers will want to make big changes. If you have a vested interest in this show in that you will be involved in for a few years down the road, my suggestion would be to work out a game plan to have gradual changes over the years. The first "bug in their ear" should be to replace any commercial vendors with artists and crafters. Give them some statistics..... especially in this economy more people are looking to support items made in the US. If you can offer the committee ideas on artists to bring in to replace commercial - they may start looking at the feasibility. As Larry mentioned, stress Quality, stress the importance of supporting local artists. Long term..... that will bring in good artists from the region. Gotta get rid of the commercial guys first. Once that is completed, then suggest a "food court" area at another section of the festival. Patrons will love that idea as well.
I'm sure you want to participate in this event as it is local, but from an artist's standpoint, I'd certainly avoid attending it as a vendor.
Sure wish you good luck in your endeavor!
Linda
Oh, I forgot to mention..... I attend the Cedarburg (WI) Strawberry Festival every year. Here is a link to their website. The event is equally large and the (2)art sections are run by two local artists guilds. Extremely successful - it attracts tourists from outside the US every year as well as tourists from surrounding states. There is ALWAYS an artist wait list of more than 100. The organizers treat the art vendors like gold. You may want to give your committee ideas patterned after this highly successful event: http://www.cedarburgfestivals.org/strawberryfestival.html
Linnea Lahlum > Linda AndersonMarch 23, 2009 at 12:41pm
Linda, out of curiousity: there are 2 fine art fairs listed. How are they different from each other? I have seen it listed in publications before, and kind of assumed that since the focus is a food, that the “fine art” fairs are really mostly country craft, as is common at multi-theme “festivals” through out the Midwest. But are they? Or one really “fine art/fine craft” and the other country?
This festival is actually all about the art. The "Strawberry Fest" guise just adds to the event. Cedarburg is a small artisian community. One of the highest income per capita cities in the nation, it's entire main street (Washington Ave) area (about 1.5 miles) is completely registered on the National Register of Historic Places. Nearly every shop/store on Washington Ave houses artists shops. Many of the buildings behind the main street buildings house several artisian shops - one of those buildings is an old historic woolen mill that kept it's authenticity but is divided into 20 or so shops (guestimating the amount).
One of the (3) artists groups running the event is the Cedarburg Cultural Center - a nice old building smack dab in the middle of main st. Another group is the Ozaukee Art Center. The third is the Cedar Creek Merchants Settlement Association. The first two are medium specific to painting, sculpture, graphics, photography, fiber, metal, glass, clay, wood, and fine jewelry. The last includes above mediums but will accept a few "crafters" of the highest caliper. Each of the three take care of specific areas of the festival. Typically there are over 250 Art Vendors. The food court area is seperate and consumes approximately 2% of the entire show.
It is a juried show and somewhat difficult to get into as anyone who has vendored there nearly always comes back. From my point of view, it's one of the best run shows I've attended.
Each year I've had customers from other countries - England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Asia and all have told me they fly in just for this weekend event. I typically ship their purchases home. I do see many of them each year.
Last year the crowd seemed a little different, but all in all, I have always done quite well.
Best I can summarize is this is definately all about the arts. The organizing groups work together well to combine just the right fine art mediums to attract well seasoned art customers.
Linnea Lahlum > Linda AndersonMarch 27, 2009 at 10:28pm
So Linda, you actually do this show yourself?As an artist? Or are you one of the organizers of the show (s)?
The use of the term “vendor” rather than artist has me wondering; as most artists dislike and avoid that term. It implies someone selling as opposed to MAKING the work one is selling. The only shows I have experienced as using that term were very low end, community festival-type events that were open to just about anything: beside art and craft, replacement windows, socks, Mary Kay,you get the picture. In 21 years of art fairs the only terms I have found acceptable to most artists are (depending on medium) : artist, artisan, or craftsperson. Even “Crafter” has an implication: that of a maker of country or traditional crafts.
Etymology:
Vendor: from Latin vendere "to sell, praise," contraction of vendumare "offer for sale," from venum "for sale" . Vendor is from 1594, from late Anglo-Fr. vendor, from vendre "to vend," from L. vendere "to sell."
Yes, I do this show as an artist. I am not an organizer of the show. Cedarburg happens to be considered one of the largest artisian villages in the nation and is 15 minutes from my home so I know it well. Guess my age is showing when I use the term vendor. Yes I have done small shows and large shows (you can view my schedule on the events page on my website). I specialize in Great Lakes Nautical and Nature and even do several high end Maritime Events (all juried) that would not be classified as high end art shows. Those maritime events annually always end up with the largest profits for me AND I love doing them. I don't do any shows that have commercial sellers or buy/sell vendors. I don't get too hung up on terminology - I guess that goes back to a time photographers were frowned upon for considering themselves as "artists". Call me an artist, a vendor, a photographer, ... as long as my original fine art keeps selling at the shows, in my shop and online and I enjoy the process, I'm not too picky to classify myself as anything other than someone who enjoys and supports all art mediums and life in general. Thanks though for the vocabulary lesson.
Mary Strope > Linda AndersonMarch 23, 2009 at 9:02am
Thanks All! i met with the committee and laid out my points. they ate it up! they decided to add extra advertising for the craft area, and understand its not a good idea to put them alongside food and commercial vendors. I did talk about avoiding buy/sell and what craft means. Craft is not the lady who sells Avon. They want to clean up the area and make it work. Which is great. In the future they will add awards, but their budget won't allow it this year. Also convinced them to do a simple survey to learn what their exhibitors need, what works and what doesn't work for them. So i consider my time spent with them as a success. As for quality, this is NOT a quality show. This is low level craft, home hobbyists, with a few professional folks. Definitely not the level i am used to working with . I did explain that if they want to upgrade to a higher quality level, they need to have the audience that can buy quality craft. There attendees do not fit that higher income, higher sophistication requirement to upgrade to fine crafts. In their case, i do think its better that they stick with the home hobbyist and "Kraft" (intentionally misspelled). Our city and surrounding area used to be all about the auto industry, and that is gone away in MI. People looking for contemporary craft can go to Ann Arbor which is only 20 minutes west of here. So thanks again for your thoughts.
Hi Mary,
One of my art show "rules" is to never do a show in a theme park because they are there for the attractions, not the art.
Putting original work in with commercial booths never works. What will happen is that in the first year or two they may get some quality higher end work but it won't attract the type of buyer it needs so there will be a decline in quality of the original work until all that's left are the commercial booths. Shows that do work advertise the quality of what they have create a market for it. What will survive is lower price lower quality work or imports that can survive in that environment.
Basically they need to define who they are and the market they are after.
Why won't you tell us the name of the show and its location. It all seems so vague. Can't you be a little more specific. I have done shows for 35 years and would be glad to give info but you need to give a little more. Aloha,Nels
Replies
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Unfortunately you will have to take baby steps on this one. I've been actively involved in organizing events and have found established events are very difficult to make changes in. In your case, with a successful past attendance of 200,000 - it's not likely the organizers will want to make big changes. If you have a vested interest in this show in that you will be involved in for a few years down the road, my suggestion would be to work out a game plan to have gradual changes over the years. The first "bug in their ear" should be to replace any commercial vendors with artists and crafters. Give them some statistics..... especially in this economy more people are looking to support items made in the US. If you can offer the committee ideas on artists to bring in to replace commercial - they may start looking at the feasibility. As Larry mentioned, stress Quality, stress the importance of supporting local artists. Long term..... that will bring in good artists from the region. Gotta get rid of the commercial guys first. Once that is completed, then suggest a "food court" area at another section of the festival. Patrons will love that idea as well.
I'm sure you want to participate in this event as it is local, but from an artist's standpoint, I'd certainly avoid attending it as a vendor.
Sure wish you good luck in your endeavor!
Linda
One of the (3) artists groups running the event is the Cedarburg Cultural Center - a nice old building smack dab in the middle of main st. Another group is the Ozaukee Art Center. The third is the Cedar Creek Merchants Settlement Association. The first two are medium specific to painting, sculpture, graphics, photography, fiber, metal, glass, clay, wood, and fine jewelry. The last includes above mediums but will accept a few "crafters" of the highest caliper. Each of the three take care of specific areas of the festival. Typically there are over 250 Art Vendors. The food court area is seperate and consumes approximately 2% of the entire show.
It is a juried show and somewhat difficult to get into as anyone who has vendored there nearly always comes back. From my point of view, it's one of the best run shows I've attended.
Each year I've had customers from other countries - England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Asia and all have told me they fly in just for this weekend event. I typically ship their purchases home. I do see many of them each year.
Last year the crowd seemed a little different, but all in all, I have always done quite well.
Best I can summarize is this is definately all about the arts. The organizing groups work together well to combine just the right fine art mediums to attract well seasoned art customers.
The use of the term “vendor” rather than artist has me wondering; as most artists dislike and avoid that term. It implies someone selling as opposed to MAKING the work one is selling. The only shows I have experienced as using that term were very low end, community festival-type events that were open to just about anything: beside art and craft, replacement windows, socks, Mary Kay,you get the picture. In 21 years of art fairs the only terms I have found acceptable to most artists are (depending on medium) : artist, artisan, or craftsperson. Even “Crafter” has an implication: that of a maker of country or traditional crafts.
Etymology:
Vendor: from Latin vendere "to sell, praise," contraction of vendumare "offer for sale," from venum "for sale" . Vendor is from 1594, from late Anglo-Fr. vendor, from vendre "to vend," from L. vendere "to sell."
Sorry for the tangent. I tangent too easily.
One of my art show "rules" is to never do a show in a theme park because they are there for the attractions, not the art.
Putting original work in with commercial booths never works. What will happen is that in the first year or two they may get some quality higher end work but it won't attract the type of buyer it needs so there will be a decline in quality of the original work until all that's left are the commercial booths. Shows that do work advertise the quality of what they have create a market for it. What will survive is lower price lower quality work or imports that can survive in that environment.
Basically they need to define who they are and the market they are after.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-767-8644
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