I did this show last year and it was the best of my fall shows so I had high expectations. It was definitely a Saturday show last year since most of the little shops and restaurants in Deland were closed on Sunday. So you can imagine my disapointment on Saturday evening when I went home with a little over expenses. But this year the shops stayed open on Sunday and I managed to do almost as well as last year.
Vounteers for booth sitting were numerous. The artist party on Friday night is very nice. They feed you both breakfast and lunch. Both were very nice although I wish if they were going to give us meat in slices (roast beef on Saturday, Turkey on Sunday) they would give us knives. I never like Saturday morning setup but this one is not bad. I always arrive early and unload to the sidewalk and then setup when the street is closed at 6AM. I hired help for both setup and breakdown (you have to be off the street by 7 on Sunday). I probably could have done both my myself but I get stressed easily when I don't have a lot of time for setup or breakdown and it was worth it to be done with both in plenty of time.
I find it strange that I do so well at this show. I live near the area and I just don't see the demographics but apparently they are there. Every other show this fall in central florida I have sold only one (or none) framed prints. The rest of my sales were all unframed. This show I sold five framed prints. People seem to walk the whole show and then choose. All of my big sales were people who had come by the booth at least once before. People do come by before the show officially opens so it helps to be open early.
One of my neighbors did not do well. I don't know how the other one did. I didn't get around much. I always feel I'm going to miss that one big sale if I leave the booth for too long so I don't know how others did. I talked to a few people on Sunday morning and they were not real happy but I wasn't happy on Sunday morning either. I hope everyone's sales picked up on Sunday like mine did.
I've got a lot of framing to do before I'm off to Naples this coming weekend.
Comments
I am a 2D painter from Atlanta. Not sure if its worth the expenses.. Not really any shows in ATL in Nov/Dec..
Here is also a good newspaper report about Deland from the Daytona Beach News Journal: Customers "fall in" art show
Here are some photos I came across from a blogger who attended the Deland fair: http://beauvoirglass.blogspot.com/2010/11/deland-art-festival-part-...
Wish I could tell you the name of the blogger, but it wasn't evident without a lot of digging and I'm mighty busy myself digging out from my long absence here.