LOCATION: small city center in a lovely progressive area outside of Chicago. It is a great town.
HOURS: Well you would think this would have been simple, but the website said one thing and the information to artists said another. The bottom line is that public really didn’t show up until noon! Yep NOON.
SHOW COST: $480 + $100 for a corner
SETUP: Set up was from 7pm – 10pm or 6am – 9am. It was fine.
ARTIST PARKING: The Chamber who took over this event, made arrangements for $10/day for the weekend for artists in a parking garage. Many however were not able to take advantage of it because their vehicles were higher than allowed in that parking garage.
WEATHER: PERFECT! (This is the one thing they got right!)
ART QUALITY: Wide Wide Variety…. Artists who should be in an upscale Gallery to flat spoon rest liquor bottles. All the fine artists were upset and decided not to attend again.
ATTENDANCE: Moderate (would have been better if at the very least they posted the same time on their ads)
MANAGEMENT: This was the Chambers first year and it was clear that who ever was running this was not familiar with events that artists participate in and frankly has a very bad sense of business. I was stunned that the first thing they did was change the name of the show. Yes, you read that right. I applied to the Fountain Square Art Festival and I participated in the Evanston Chamber Artisan Summerfest. Can you imagine how dumb this was? My rack cards were wrong and people who were going to come to the area to see me, thought it was the wrong event - for one thing. This was terrible on so many levels I could not even believe that someone with a business background would think this was a good idea.
The “summerfest” came from the fact that there were beer tasting tents. This is the wrong direction for a quality art fair and clearly this is the direction they want to go.
To really showcase their newness… they cut a piece of rope 10’ long to use in marking spots on the street. One problem is that the rope was 6” too short. D’oh. I knew we would roll with this but lots of artists were mad out the gate on this one.
The artists lounge was a private bathroom. Meh. Okay, but for $480 for a 10x10 booth? I felt that the fees to get into the show were $150 too high. Also the Chamber actually asked the public for donations on the way in. This was just as uncomfortable as the homeless panhandlers on the street near our booth asking for change. I saw a lot of irony in this.
They did judge and give away 1st place ribbons…. That were yellow. (Yellow? ) First place ribbons (with no money attached) are still very nice but First place is traditionally BLUE. (Yellow signifies a participation award or 3rd place.)
SALES: Meh.
BOTTOM LINE: We won’t return, even though we loved the area.
Replies
Wow!!! I can't believe they told everyone to wait an hour and a half after the show ended. The show ends at 6pm and most people are beat and want to get home. I've done that shows and it's almost clear out by 7:30pm. Hope people did well there. It's a nice area with great places to eat. I love Evanston!!!
I didnt add this but one thing they did at the end was tell every artist that they would not be able to bring their cars in for an hour and a half after the closing of the show. I finally had to speak up. I said to the messengers of this news.... Look, the professionals know to break everything down before getting their car but you can't bar them from entry until a time deadline like that because then everyone will want in at once. They did listen, and load out went fine.
Wow! 1.5 hours! We are totally packed up and loaded within an 1.5 hours ... most of the time.
This show has changed many times. We did it once many years ago, don't remember who was running it, but it was pricey to do but we made good money, but the date conflicted with many other good shows on that date so the cost to profit ratio was improved elsewhere. Amdur Productions ran it for awhile, then most recently the Chicago Events group and now the Chamber ... great report. Thanks.