The Atlanta Arts Festival is held in Midtown's Piedmont Park, the same site as the Spring Dogwood Festival. The last time I was in this park we were participating in the Dogwood and vowed never to return. The main sponsor was (I think) Purina Dog Chow and they were holding the frisbee dog championships in the middle of the park.
I think there was maybe one dog to every two people. So you can imagine how pleased I was to see these signs!
The festival is set up in a very large circle on the grass. It is very pedestrian friendly and most artists do have shade. The set up requires (I am told) a very regimented procession of vehicles in order for everyone to get in and out. The executive director is Julie Tepp who used to work with the Dogwood Festival. Several years ago she vowed to return the much loved Atlanta Arts Festival which went by the boards in a recession many years ago. She has a lovely park, an affluent neighborhood, great artist coordinator (so sorry I can't remember Nancy's last name), a cadre of volunteers and all the bells and whistles of a good event (kids activities, a cooking stage, entertainment, family art activities and artist demonstrations).
I saw and met a bunch of members of this community including: Michele Levett, Hyacinth Manning, Matthew & Bea Hatala, Michelle Babcock, Diane French, Michael Stephens and Robert Jones. I loved seeing old friends like, Amos Amit, Ronnie Phillips, Mikel Robinson, Scott Wilson, Holly Foss, Sandy Atkins-Moran, Harry Roa, William Cowherd, Jack Brumbaugh and Michael Bryant. There are approximately 200 artists.
The weather was perfect. When I was there on Sunday afternoon there was a good crowd and a lot of people visiting the booths and interacting with the artists. I did see some packages but can't give a good report on sales. Perhaps some of the members listed above can add some details.
I don't know, Nels, is there enough "meat" in this?
Sales were being made --
The treat of the day though was seeing an old friend still exhibiting his fine paintings: Scott Wilson. We did a lot of reminiscing. Great to see you Scott! I wish you many more fine art fairs and a continued fine life!
Comments
From a private email to me:
There were four art shows that same weekend: Roswell, Sandy Springs, Atlanta Arts Festival and I think one other. Doesn't matter as the people from those areas won't cross the perimeter, but not good planning just in case.
Crowds were excellent, but I was three booths down from the free samples and people were basically too busy eating to look at art. The Saturday and Sunday had two distinct demographics.
Had I not invited friends from the area to look at art I would not have sold. I did make a profit and I might do the show again, but I think I might try Roswell next or get another space, which I thought was good...
The shade did not help my area, and while I had a lot of interest, the only sales were from people I invited. I would probably do this show again, get a different spot and do pre-show marketing. There could be any number of factors of why people weren't buying like economy, but generally the artists I talked to sales were poor. Promoters were awesome and the artists dinner was great.
I mostly sell originals and have a variety of price points, not a lot of prints which many of the other 2d people rely on for sales.
One abstract artist I did another show with since said she had a great show in Atlanta, but she sells original 5 x 5's for $50 each and I think she did well. I know in Michigan she did 9k. Can't remember what she said about Atlanta; maybe 2500.
I did this show this year and two years ago. Not much has changed other than several artists I know deciding not to come back in the interem. This show seems to have so much going for it: mainly a fantastic location in a major city that has no other major art fair.
My experience both years is that the show brings in a pretty large, seeming "upscale" crowd, that unfortunately has practically no intention of buying art. At 5:30 Sunday afternoon, I was looking at being in the red by several hundred dollars until someone came by to save me with a big sale. I felt fortunate to escape with a decent profit (by recession standards).
The mystery is why this show doesn't bring in the buyers. I've heard they are under some restrictions by Piedmont Park not to publicize the event too widely because they want to protect the park from large crowds. There could have been more people, but many more and it would have been gridlock along the path. The trick for the organizers, if they're interested, is to figure out how to bring in the people who are motivated to buy. From a 2D perspective, that would be people with an empty space on the wall and looking to fill it with an art piece. If they could pull that off a little better, then the art quality would get better, and the show would get a reputation in Atlanta as something more than a nice stroll around the park. If they don't, it may trend off the other direction.
The show was lovely and except for a couple of glitches in transportation and tear down I would do it again. Tear down was rough. The show goes until 6pm and we found ourselves packing in the dark. I mean really dark, there were street lights there, but they did not come on. The folks next to us left their tent sides so we called Julie and waited for someone to come and pick them up. I know the sides were left because it was dark. We had to use our cell phones to Scott the area for anything we missed. My recommendation is that they end the show an hour earlier just because it gets dark earlier. Or they make sure the park turns on their lights.
Every show has it's ups and downs. I would put this show in my like to do category.
One other side note. I did witness a husband of one of the artist reading the riot act because they had to walk all the way from the parking garage to their tent. She's handicapped and that resulted in her being in pain all day. I am handicapped also and I had my husband drop me off at our booth before 8am. If I had to of made that walk I would have been in tears.