The AFB Woodland Art Fair is a much anticipated, premier event in Lexington, Kentucky. This past weekend (August 20-21, 2011), was my second opportunity to show my photographs in Woodland Park, an almost downtown, urban park in a neighborhood setting.
I live in Savannah, Georgia, so I began my nine hour journey to the blue-grass state at 6:00 am Friday morning. I arrived at 3:00 pm to an easy set-up. Load-in begins at noon so many of the artists had already come and gone. You drive right to your site and set up liesurely, in my case, under the shade of enormous trees behind a baseball diamond. Some artists around me were complaining about the heat. Well the mid-80s temperature felt real good to this south Georgia boy who had been subjected to triple digit temperatures and 100% humidity all summer. Felt like winter to me! That night, I stayed at a Baymont about ten minutes away for $49.
Many of the patrons at this event are well educated in art, and do their research before attending the show. The Lexington Art League, who are the promoters, link from their website to participating artists that have their own websites. Starting at the first of the month, my Google Analytics showed that I was getting scores of hits from Lexington, Louisville, and several surrounding communities. After a few days, hits from repeat sources became common, with stays on my website as long as 30 minutes. That's always a good sign that somebody may actually buy something!
The weather report for Saturday was excellent. Lot's of Sun, but little breeze. It felt fine to me, but many of the locals were complaining. The show runs from 10 to 6 on Saturday and 10 to 5 on Sunday. I like to arrive early to get my pick of parking on the ballfield. I can back my truck to about 50' of my booth, providing easy access to my weather-proof warehouse. Booth spaces in my area are twelve feet by practically unlimited, giving much appreciated breathing room. The Lexington Art League honors same-space-as-last-year requests whenever possible. They are also great at providing a continental breakfast each day with a wide variety of choices and they bring water to your booth.
Attendance momentum was a little slower getting started this year than last year. Probably because nasty weather (which never actually materialized) threatened opening day last year and folks wanted to get around to the booths before it started raining. Well, by 11:00 this year buying momentum was up and continued strong to about 5:30. This was my best show last year and I ended Saturday ahead of last year's figures.
I woke up at 6:00 on Sunday to a disappointing weather report. It showed a 95% chance of rain that morning until around 11:00. The issue was, if the ballfield is wet you have to park out of the festival area and take a provided shuttle. When I returned from breakfast, the rain chance had dropped to 40%. What a relief!
At 9:00 the art league had an awards ceremony. Last year, my good friend Greg Turco, a fellow Georgia photographer who was set up across from me won the merit award for photography. That was an instant free ride into this year's show. Well this year he took the whole shebang by winning the top show award and another free ride! Yehhh photography!
Sunday was especially pleasent with a nice breeze most of the day. Attendance was a bit lower than Saturday, but I was still busy all day, selling a number of framed photos as well as my large limited edition matted prints. Load-out is equally stress free, except toward the end, rapidly approaching thunder gave me added encouragement to pack up what I had left. The rains came as I closed the lid on my camper shell. Whew! It was right at seven as I pulled out. By 4:00 am I was home. Aren't Interstates wonderful?
The AFB Woodland Art Fair is a well run, top notch show. You can find it on Zapp. It is juried very well with much high quality variety. There were many photographers present, but we all had different subjects and approaches. There was even one fellow who made ancient cyanotypes with a view camera. I do around 25 shows a year and so far Woodland is my second best this year. But only because my hometown, Fine Arts on the River Festival last April, was a killer show with buying energy from our massive tourist base.
I'll be praying that I will return to my space under the shade trees next year. Of course Greg doesn't have that worry...lucky stiff!
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