I know this has been discussed here before, but I can't seem to find it. There's always a lot of talk about how jury fees are out of hand, and that shows are making money hand over fist with the record number of artists who apply. But what does it REALLY cost to plan, organize and hold an art show? Where do the jury fees and the sponsor money and all the booth fees go when it's all over?
Curious, that's all. Are art shows turning a profit, or are they a zero-sum game?
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Great thread! Does anyone do this FOR profit? If yes, given the conversation I'm assuming there's much more emphasis on gathering festival sponsors and selling them advertising opportunities in the festival brochures, signage, etc. From what I've read of the non-profit shows here, you are able to break even or make a little when sponsorships are not your focus.
Yes, privately owned events are definitely for profit. Think Sugarloaf, Howard Alan Events, Amdur Productions. Other events like Arts, Beats & Eats are privately owned and have a charity arm and a foundation.
We run a show past 45 years-we are a non profit-the show makes a tad over expenses every year.
About 100 vendors. Costs 50K to do with city,permit,portapotty,entainment,police,security,poster,ads,yada yada yada.fees
We are not looking for much more than to continue forever. Show fee is $285 for a 10x10
We lowered the booth fee a few years ago when we made money.You never hear that said.
Its tons of work for us on the board but most of the work is done by our paid director.
At $285 each for 100 vendors you are only covering about 60% of your stated expenses. What other income does the show generate to bring yall a tad over expenses? Advertising and sponsorship also has to play a significant part.
What show? Where? When? More info...?
This is off the top of my head for a smallish indoor show at a city-owned auditorium in a prime location. There were about 50 vendors. Amounts are approximate. The grand total of costs was close to $9,000.
Facility rental: 3 days (includes load-in day Friday) $6,000
Advertising: $400
Two off-duty police officers during show hours (amount unknown)
All the other stuff the facility charges for: around $2,500. (each table, each dolly, each chair, each electricity "hook-up",* parking lot attendant,** having the indoor concession stand open, microphone and speaker, and probably other things.
* The facility demanded to see our floor plan with the spaces using electricity marked. It charged $60 for each separate space using electricity. Nobody was allowed to plug into a neighbor's electricity. The facility manager came through and checked all the electricity usage.
** If we wanted vendor parking in the loading dock area, we had to pay upwards of $20 per hour for the attendant who guarded that entrance. There were two other events concurrent with ours who also had vendor parking in the loading dock.
There was no pipe-and-drape and each vendor carted his/her stuff in and out.
Here is an excerpt from the State College, PA Festival of the Arts, newsletter -- just in case you are forgetting any of the efforts put forth by staff:
If it's hard to wait for May, please go online to see our 2016 Invited Artists. These men and women either won a prize at last year's festival or did especially well in the on-site scoring. They'll be easy to spot at the Festival. Each will have a blue Invited Artist ribbon hanging in their booth.
If they weren't turning a decent profit, they wouldn't be having them. For our little show, we make a small profit but we aren't doing it for the money. This is a labor of love for me. I don't think that's the case with most shows. But expenses keep rising quickly. The rent on our indoor location goes up over $1000 each year. Next year we have to hire parking lot people because the crowds are so large. We may have to take out some booths because of the crowds as well. Our jury fee is $20. That covers our ZAPP costs and lunch during the jury and not much else. Booth fee is $145 which hasn't changed for a couple of years. We do charge $5 to get in which helps keep the booth fees down (and pays for Friday night pizza for the artists) but it's hard since I want to spend everything I can on advertising. The rising jury fees drive me nuts as an artist because it's just a huge source of income for most shows and many times not even used for the jurying...
Hey Jim! Hows it going? Thought I'd chime in - though i am relatively new to directing shows.
The financials of any show depend on so many variables. I can only speak for myself. I run the Evergreen Fine Arts Festival in a small town just outside of Denver - very different than a huge show like Bayou or Madison, etc. We do get a lot of people that buy art and visit the show, but we don't have huge corporate sponsors or anything. Not a lot of money being made, but as a non-profit, we do make a little that we can use towards scholarships, grants for local artists, supporting a local gallery in town, etc.
Our expenses are large - from permit fees, equipment lease, porta-potties, trash, recycling, 24-hr security ($$$), catering for 200 artist dinner, publicity & marketing (last year we spent thousands on newspaper, magazine, and signage), to printing, etc.
We also try to spoil the artists that come and bring their beautiful work to our community. We love artists. We are artists. We spent a lot of money on amenities like a catered dinner, t-shirts, etc.
I imagine the larger shows that have sponsors giving them 6-figure donations do much better - they also have higher costs. When you do a show in a large city and close streets, you pay by the hour for the closure and the police resources to secure it. No doubt that it is not cheap. I would love to have that challenge, but not yet.
I do know that the directors of large shows can make some good money. The CEO position of the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver was posted last year and was said to pay $150k.....I'm clearly not doing something right, lol.
Josh, interesting point on Cherry Creek. I just glanced at their 2013 form 990 and it shows Artist Application Exhibitor Fees $436,494 with total Income: $2,011,021 Expenses: $2,220,395. The big difference in the numbers appears to be due to grants and donations.
Jim, if you are looking for a specific show and they are a 501c3, you can request the past 3 years of their form 990's since they are required to file them and be publicly available. I know of one show that effectively ignores your 990 requests (and lost status with the feds since they were not filing these I think). Unlike cherry creek, there is one "promoter" here in Colorado that runs 5 shows and does not appear to invest much in many of the expenses that Josh lists out in my opinion (there have been discussions on this "promoter" on AFI). In my opinion EFFECTIVE marketing should be at the top of the expense line items.
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