So I decided to try Florida. I choose this show and one next weekend because I was able to squeeze a girls getaway in between my two shows. I figured it was a good time to test this part of Florida out for me and get a vacation as well.
Geri has already posted how great the weather was. It was amazing. Can't get any better. I will try to not repeat what has alread been posted.
Set up was early morning. We didn't get a lot of instructions ahead of time. Just a map of the booths and time to show up. They did open up the artist parking the night before ($40) so I parked the van on Friday night and was able to find out where check in was the next morning. I am not a morning person. I like to know where I am going ahead of time. There are a lot of ways to get to the booths. There wasn't any instructions, just get to your booth area one way or another. My booth was on a side street, off the main area. We were back to back, but with a planted median in between the booths. I paid extra for a corner spot (see the second picture). This was really just a walkway. I had 4 feet between my booth and the other corner booth next to me. For me it was not worth it because I feel that one needs 6 feet of space to stand back and look at a painting. The good think about having this "corner" spot was I did have a little bit of access to the back of my tent. Otherwise the back of the booth was not usuable. I found it interesting that jewlers and painters were placed next to eachother.
Break down was a free for all. No load out passes or anything. Just move the blockades and go for it. I prefer to break down before I get my van. I am use to doing that any way, so I didn't run to get my vehicle. Unfortunately the public was also allowed into this area during breakdown. It made it very difficult and dangerous. Near then end my van back door was almost taken off. My friend actually had to jump in front of the car to stop them. This car then proceded to run over my tent poles and almost me, but I rolled out of the way.
Sales were not what I hoped. My cost just for the show, booth, jury, parking was over $600. I would expect at least 10x. Many artist told me I was crazy to expect that in Florida. If I wouldn't have gotten a corner space I would have hit 10x, but that still wouldn't have been enough to get me excited to travel 10 hours away from home. The only artist I talked to that would come back to this show was a jewler that lives in the area. Everyone made some money. Enough to go out for dinner that night, but not enough to be excited. I did not see much of anything walking by in way of sales. Maybe jewlery, small stuff put in purses.
I was disappointed with the crowds. The show claimed 60,000 people attend, but no way. The picture I have above was taken during a busy time. The other pic is also a good example of the crowd. Very few kids in strollers, but tons of dogs in strollers. The people who did buy were great, and didn't ask for discounts.
The show was fun to do. Now I am having a great time on the Florida beaches. Today we went to the races with a group of patrons we met at the show.
Comments
Michael, we were next to the flexible clay flower people in Birmingham one year, on Mother's Day. I had a double booth, but they were lined up two deep all day Sunday buying those flowers for $5 and $10. The couple "making" them were in a world of hurt, as they had another show that next weekend and were running out of inventory. Waah for them!
ooops-- by the way nobody was carrying anything in
melanie's photos in boca
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