Posted by Ginny Herzog on April 27, 2009 at 1:16pm
This past weekend the Austin show was the last of my four TX shows that I scheduled for this month. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I skipped the FL market for the first time in over 20 years to attempt to establish a new market in TX. I had done the Austin show three times previous. The first time, in 1984, it was known as Laguna Gloria Fiesta and was held on the grounds of the Laguna Gloria Art Museum. The next two times I participated was in 2000 and 2001, when it was held in a downtown location and the show was the Austin Arts Festival, I believe. Last year they moved the show to Cesar Chavez Blvd, which runs parallel and just north of Lady Bird Lake and the show is now known as Art City Austin.Early check-in was available on Friday afternoon. It was located at an off show site, across the lake in one of the many parking lots in a large park, and was not easily accessible to artists, especially those unfamiliar with the Austin area. My suggestion would be to relocate check-in to the "staging area" in the hour previous to their setup time. There were two load-in shifts, an hour apart, giving the first shift only 45 minutes to unload, before needing to move their vehicles to available parking up to six blocks away.The first shift was given access at 7:40 and by the time the second shift drove in, it was nearly 8:45 and dark. We had until midnight for setup and access on Saturday morning was at 6:30 am.Load out was smooth except for the very gusty winds that made for nervous dismantling of the booths.This being my first time at this new 7 block stretch of Cesar Chavez, I found the show layout was too long. There were too many large gaps between groups of booths. Also, the Food Court took up a long block and, perhaps could have been placed on an adjacent side street like Guadalupe, instead, to tighten the show.This show definitely did not have the same energy as MSFW, nor the buyers.Sales were slow for nearly everyone I spoke with and several had not made expenses, including me. I'm not sure that the show was promoted very well. I was in Austin for nearly three weeks and saw very little advertising. I thought the attendance was mediocre, compared to Houston and Ft. Worth. There was an $8 gate fee and two day admission was $15, which may have discouraged interested patrons from returning on Sunday to purchase. This show seems to try to reinvent itself and I wonder if, perhaps, these are all volunteers.The awards were best of category for $100 each and $!000 Best of Show. I never saw a list of award winners, however, I know thatThe urban landscape of downtown Austin has changed dramatically since I was last here. I was very excited to see the wonderful new contemporary architecture, including loft and condo buildings. Also, some outstanding contemporary skyscrapers.My next show is the Northern VA Fine Arts Festival in Reston and I'm hoping for a stronger art buying market there.I hope that others fared better at other shows last weekend and wonder how the stormy weather affected those at the OK Festival of Arts.
It does, indeed, sound as though they keep trying to reinvent the event, yet I know they have an energetic marketing campaign as I get emails from them all year long so I was expecting some dynamic happenings. I went to their web site to see if there was a list of exhibitors. No.
But from the site I can see they are doing lots of other things around the arts. Perhaps they need someone dedicated to the art fair itself and the artists. Do you suppose Art City Austin is the organizing principle, but everything is working on their own pet projects and not paying attention to this?
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It does, indeed, sound as though they keep trying to reinvent the event, yet I know they have an energetic marketing campaign as I get emails from them all year long so I was expecting some dynamic happenings. I went to their web site to see if there was a list of exhibitors. No.
But from the site I can see they are doing lots of other things around the arts. Perhaps they need someone dedicated to the art fair itself and the artists. Do you suppose Art City Austin is the organizing principle, but everything is working on their own pet projects and not paying attention to this?