Last weekend, I participated in my first outdoor art fair (I have, before, only participated in the inside, small art fair at my church in Madison, WI, First Unitarian Society, called Art in the Wright Place). It was an experience. Before hand, I had purchased a brand new Trimline canopy with mesh walls, French door--the whole shooting match. It arrived a couple of weeks ago with a shipping note indicating altogether it weighed around 200 pounds. My wife and practiced assembling it by watching a video they supplied. We would watch one step, turn off the video, go outside and complete that step. Then we returned for the next step until we had the whole thing up.
Also, before, the fair, I printed many new pictures (I am a photographer--www.photographybyjohnwoods.com). I got them matted, purchased frames and glass, and did that as well. I also purchased some new canvas prints of my work. I also created sets of note cards of my pictures. My work, by the way, is somewhat eclectic, with a lot of pictures from Europe as well as Wisconsin and other places we have traveled to. The night before the fair, which was last Saturday, August 10, 2013, we set up our booth. Though my vehicle for doing is a Prius, I got it all the back of the car, with the backseats down. The venue for the fair is a small town south of Madison on the Sugar River, and there is a park along with river, and that is where the fair took place. It is an attractive and tranquil place. It took us about 2-3 hours to do this as it was our first time and we were trying to figure out everything. We set our prices quite reasonably.
The next morning we arrived early, put up our pictures, organized the booth, and waited for customers, who started arriving a little after 9 AM. Paoli is in the midst of many farms with vast fields of corn. To make a long story short, we did not sell one framed piece nor any of the canvas pictures. We did sell most of our cards ($16 for 8) and we did sell some 11x14 ($30) and 16x20 double-matted prints ($60). At the end of the day, we had sold about $430 worth of stuff. I guess you could say I was disappointed. I thought we could do at least $1,000. However, this is a small fair, and the amount of people who came, while steady throughout the day, was probably around 1,500. In seeking to understand what was going on, we have attributed the small sales to both the number of people attending and the demographic, which I am not sure is taken with nice European prints.
Tomorrow we will participate in the Agora Art Fair in Fitchburg. We will take to heart the lessons we learned last week. We have even more cards. We have more matted but unframed prints. We will also have a good selection of framed works and some very nice canvas prints, including one 30x40 print of a restaurant on a bridge in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Provence. This fair is much better attended, and is situated in a town with many high-income residents. So I think the demographic will be more favorable to what we have. This fair has been well reviewed here in the past. I am hoping for better results, and I will continue to learn from this experience. I will give a report on my continuing adventures after the dust settles on this one.
Comments
I started my art fair career in 1981 in Madison, WI too. Now I live in Florida 7 months and Michigan 5 months per year.
You are mentioning sizes and prices; here are mine: 4x6 mounted on 8x10- $23 add a rag mat + $10 = $33. 6x9 mounted on 11x14- $39 add a mat $15 = $54. 8x12 mounted on 14x18- $59 add a mat $20 = $79 and 11x17 mounted on 18x24- $99 add a mat $30 = $129. When I make a sale (and I make a lot of them) I make money. When you have no competition, you can charge anything you want within reason.
Another thing I've learned over the years is you will sell everything you hang if wait long enough.... There is someone out there for everything you make.
Good luck.
I meant by the 8x10s that they were 5x7 prints matted to 8x10 and selling for the prices noted above. I don't do 8x10 to 11x14, i usually do 8.5x11 double-matted to 11x14 and I priced those at $30 each. I sold about 8 of those at this fair. I also had 12x15 double-matted to 16x20 and priced at $60. I sold a couple of those, but I didn't have that many of those at this fair. I also had two 20x30 canvas prints that I sold for $200 each. It didn't cost too much to have those created so I made money there. I had one big canvas print, 30x40, available for $350 and many people liked it and everyone asked about it and where it was taken (L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Provence), but no one pulled the trigger on that one. I am confident it will sell sometime, as it is a very nice picture. I think it was a good attention grabber. I took the idea to do that from fellow Wisconsin photographer, Cassius Callender.
I think that's all good counsel. We were thinking we didn't have enough lower price points. We received feedback from many others at the Duluth Fair that very few people were buying. so I don't think it was just us. But, we were brainstorming yesterday about what else we could add to drive some revenue, if people were not looking at the matted prints we had. Our 8 X 10 were matted to 11 X 14 and we were selling them for $30, with 2 for $50. We didn't have any 5 X 7 photos with us. So, it may be the cards are not the right way to go but I dare say some of it is the respective fairs we are at. Going way back to an earlier post, my son did have a group of pictures from Europe, but we had an equal amount of what he calls "streetlight" photos, leveraging light in the evening and using extended exposures. So, we had other material to see besides the Europe photos and very little of anything sold. More thinking to do and more work to do. Thanks to everyone for the comments and opinions.
Nels, you might be right. I had a bunch of nicely matted 8x10s and only sold a few of those. I will think about not having cards in the future. By the way, I priced the 8x10s at $15 for one, $25 for two and $35 for three. That may have been low.
Oh yeah. I have my own niche too. That is why I thrive even in the worst of times. Will be at Saint Louis next month.
John what R.C. was saying about your cards is worth me ampliifying on.
In the long run the cards will hurt you more than help you.
Here is why.
When you offer such a low price point (the photo-card), you are losing a lot of sales that would have gone to you, say if you had your 8x10 mats priced at even $20. People will take the cheapest way out a lot of the time.
Think of it. You make one, $20 sale which equals about four-five of your card sales. The $20 will add up in no time.
Take it from one like RC who has made a living in photography for over 38 years at art shows.
I won't offer anything for sale under $20, you are only screwing yourself.
I realize you are a newbie, but learn from us pros. Why do you think we have been around for 38 years, it certainly isn't my good looks, but my business acumen.
My web is www.nelsjohnsonphotographer.com.
I will write more, but last weekend I did my second art fair, the Agora Art Fair in Fitchburg, WI, about 2 miles from where I live. I did better at this one, with slightly over $1000 in sales. I had cards, as I think I will always have, as I want something to sell to those who don't want to spend a lot of money. I also had a lot of matted prints and some canvas prints along with a lot of framed prints. I ended up selling two of the canvas prints, several matted prints and some cards but no framed prints. I guess the point is that you will do better at shows that draw a larger crowd in a more affluent area. At smaller shows that have less sophisticated patrons, the stuff that appeals is more likely to be craft-like than art-like. I get it, and I will try for those kinds of events. Next year I will apply for the Spring Green, WI show, which has been positively reviewed here and is about 30 miles from where I live, along with Agora and maybe a couple of others in the Madison region. As for pictures of Europe or whatever it is, I sometimes say, "I have seen a lot of pictures of the Grand Canal, but I and others have not seen my picture of the Grand Canal." Maybe others do it better maybe not. And I can tell you, John Scanlan is unlikely to be at the shows I might participate in. And if he were there, who is to say his pictures are better than mine. I have seen him in lots of shows and he does nice work, but I haven't seen any new pictures from him for a while.
Good response Terry. One never knows how artists will take criticism. The irony is, it is our best friend!
Tripod tracks ... I second R.C.'s comments. Luciano, John Scanlon and John Galbo are at the top of the game in this genre. Toppling them out of shows will be tough. Presenting more imagery of European scenes is fine, pays for your trip, but the challenge here is to think beyond what you have already seen. Why not make work that makes people stop in your booth and marvel at your new ideas?
Take a look at this site and in particular look at the photography. These people are taking risks, creating work unlike anyone else's, getting into top shows, and even if that is not necessarily your goal, really this business is about "art", not "product." https://www.cherryarts.org/artists/Artist-Gallery-(2)/2013/Photography
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