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Armonk Outdoor Art Festival in Armonk NY was this past weekend.  This show is in a small town about 30 miles north of New York City.  There are around 200 fine artists and fine crafters.  The work here is all top notch work.  The promoters do an excellent job of putting on an artist friendly, sophisticated art show which is all about the art.  There is a lot of advertising.  The small town is very supportive of the show, (all the restaurants offer discounts to artists).  The communication with the show staff is excellent.  They put together a wonderful brochure type book of all the artists and their information that the patrons can use to find the art they are interested in.  There is a $10 entry fee for this show.

Set up is on Friday.  Come when you want.  The show is on a soccer field.  You can drive up to your spot and do your thing.  If you aren't in anyone's way you can stay put until you are done.  We were  set up in 1.5 hours with everything ready to go.  Easiest set up possible.  They offer artist parking right at the event.  This is the only show I know of that gives the artist prime parking spots and the patrons have to walk into the show or be shuttled in.  The booths run in rows A-T maybe a couple more rows with about 10 booths per row.  Most people have a booth behind them and a booth across from them.  They give you 12'x12'.  Depending on how your neighbors set up you can wind up with lots of room or crammed in.  Most people worked together and made space for each other.

Load out is also very artist friendly.  Once the patrons are gone they let the artist drive onto the field.  No pass, you don't have to break down first, just have to line up and drive to your booth.  Another option was to wait until Monday.  I was staying the night anyway so I opted to wait until Monday morning to break down.  Easiest breakdown possible, all loaded up and driving away in 30 minutes. 

The show ran from 10-5 both Saturday and Sunday.  Since this is a show patrons need to pay to get into there were no early birds possible.  The show stats say it attracts around 10,000 patrons.  The weather was absolutely perfect both days.  70s and sunny with very little wind.  The crowds were low until around 1 pm in my area and stayed steady until 4pm.  Sunday the people  showed up around noon and stayed steady until 5pm.  Neither day was crowded in my area which is a good thing for a fine art show in my opinion.  It can be stressful for patrons when they can't walk and enjoy the work.  The patrons at this show are all qualified.  They have lots of money.  The purses cost more than my original art work. 

Sales.....I know of one person who had an awesome show.  Those that had done the show in the past said their sales were down, a lot.  Lots of folks zeroed.  Some said they did just OK.  In my row it was pretty dismal.  I don't think I need to get into much more detail.   I know some artists that didn't have to travel far so a "good" show for them means something different.  Anything under $5k for a traveling artist especially in an expensive area to stay to me is a bad show.   For me, this was my first ever zero show.  I believe a big part of that was it was not my market.  In general I don't do suburb shows.  They just don't work for me.  I make large scale abstracts and my price points are high.  I made an exception for this show because it had a strong reputation for large contemporary 2d sales.  Even though the patrons had money they still had sticker shock.   They were not interested in large scale work.  I was told many times they just didn't' have the room.  I know some artist sold a "large piece" but my smallest piece is still larger than most artists large piece.  The work that did walk out of the show fit into the patrons suvs.  My work usually needs to be delivered.  I am only stating this so you can have an idea of what may sell at this show for comparison sake.   I also feel there are too many artists for the amount of patrons that attend the show.  I know that won't be a popular thing to say since the show is already difficult to get into but there just are not enough buyers for everyone to have a successful show.  Especially this year.   

If you live in the area this would be a great show to try.  The show staff and volunteers are the best to work with.  They really take into consideration  the artists wants and needs.  It was great to go to New York and meet a whole new group of artists.  A few tips if you do want to try it.  Book the hotel as early as possible.  If you noticed I said hotel, as in one hotel in the whole area.  They give an artist rate of $129 a night.  It is a La Quinta.  If you can camp in your vehicle the show has a place right next to the show.  Those are your two options.  Another tip, if you want the freedom to come and go out of the artist parking area don't park in the artist parking area.  Once the show closes on Saturday they let the artists drive up to their booths.  So the artists line up to drive back onto the field.  The problem is no one can leave the parking lot once artists line up.  So everyone had to wait to leave until they cleared the fields.  The show ended at 5pm on Saturday but we couldn't drive out of the lot until 5:30pm.  We opted not to park in the artist lot on Sunday since it would be even crazier with load out.  Finally if you don't have an EZ Pass get one. It works for a bunch of states. You can do it all on line OR a bunch of stores have the transponder and you can set it up over the phone. If you are going into NYC load it up! Tolls are crazy expensive. Also if your vehicle is over 9' check your route. One of the highways we took had only 9'2" clearance. Only warning was a small sign before we hit that highway telling us passenger cars.