Blog

As always, the Winterfair show in Greater Cincinnati was held on the Friday-Sunday after Thanksgiving.  A loyal following of shoppers routinely spend Black Friday at Winterfair rather than at the malls. 

Put on by the Ohio Designer Craftsmen (ODC), many out-of-town artists make the two Winterfairs in Cincinnati and Columbus a one-two punch since they're held on consecutive weekends.  The Cincinnati Winterfair is the smaller of the two with just 200 artists of high quality work.

As an aside, the Cincinnati Winterfair is actually held in Covington, KY just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.  Years ago the show was held at the Cincinnati convention center and it was always packed with shoppers.  Then the center began renovations so ODC moved Winterfair to the Covington convention center and never returned to Cincinnati.  I'm sure the rent is lower in Covington, although their center is fine in terms of design, cleanliness, etc.  Having a Cincinnati event held in Covington doesn't seem particularly weird to the locals, since Cincinnati's airport is also in Kentucky.

I hadn't done this show for three years or so, and that year my sales were pretty good on Friday but Saturday was half of Friday and Sunday was half of Saturday.  This year Saturday sales surpassed Friday's and Sunday was the usual snore.

The crowds are thinner in recent years than they were in the good old days when the show was in Cincinnati.  But the booth and app fees come to only about $350, so it's not too hard to turn a profit.  I have the impression that many artists can bring home $2000-$3000 and of course some do quite a bit better than that.  If I'm wrong on this point someone please correct me.

The organizers make set-up as easy as possible given the logistical difficulties of the building.  You can set up on Wednesday before Thanksgiving or all day on Thanksgiving day or early Friday before the show.  The center has available quite a few large/long carts which help cut down on the trips to and from your vehicle.  However the loading dock and its parking that serves the back half of the show is quite small so there's a long line of vehicles lined up in the street waiting for their turn to enter the lot and unload.  A freight elevator takes you up one floor to the event hall, and when the elevator isn't working (which happens off and on) there's a ramp you can take to get into the hall.  I set up on Wednesday, arrived about one hour before the announced set-up start and was able to snag the fourth spot in line.  Artists in the front half of the hall must park on the street in front of the center and dolly their stuff in.  Some park in the lot right across the street and dolly from there.  Not an ideal situation but the artists make it work.

Upsides of the show include booth sitters, a nice environment and a Starbucks off the lobby.  The booth layout offered several corner booth possibilities as there were a couple of cross aisles across the eight rows.  The second floor of the center holds food exhibitors and food vendors for hot and cold lunches.

Downsides included the storage area that was only about the size of two booth spaces; way too small for 200 artists.  And, like the Columbus Winterfair, I believe that the Cincinnati show needs more promotion to rekindle shopper interest in attending.

All in all, I count this as a decent show at a reasonable price that allows you to make money on Thanksgiving weekend rather than spend it.

As a final aside, this was the show that rocked the exhibiting artists when word spread of the sudden passing of Indiana potter Jim Kemp on Friday evening.  Jim was a phenomenal talent and strong advocate for the local clay arts community, so his death was a sad event for many of us.  Jim was in the midst of preparing for the Columbus Winterfair show the following week, where he was memorialized in the booth space he would have occupied.  Rest in peace, Jim.