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This is the first time I've done this relatively new (4th-year) Howard Alan show on Hilton Head Island, SC, which I booked because:
1) AFI member Lori Kay raved about it;

2) The Florida alternatives for the weekend looked impoverishing;

3) I've never been to swank Hilton Head, thinking that a 15-year-old minivan might be turned away at the bridge.

When I first considered this show, South Carolina seemed like too far a drive for a one-off show.  But when I checked Google Maps I was surprised to find that Hilton Head was only 2.5 hours from St. Augustine and a manageable 490 miles (8-hour drive) from Fort Myers.  So I booked the show, then booked a hotel in rustic Hardeeville, about 25 miles west of the show locale, lured by a $29.95 a night room rate I found on Priceline.

I checked in late in the day on Thursday, and spent Friday morning at nearby Savannah Wildlife Refuge, then drove to Hilton Head to set up.  The show is held in a parking lot of a secluded upscale shopping complex just off rt. 278, which connects the island to the mainland.  Setup started at 10 AM Friday, and it was easy to find your booth location and get busy. 

It's a small show--about 80 artists and 20 crafters (who were clustered together on the northern end of the layout).  I was fortunate to have a spot directly under one of many tall shade trees on the site; not everyone was quite so lucky.  But the temperatures weren't the story--tropical storm Beryl was.

Beryl started churning off the east coast of Florida late in the week, and began advancing on the Florida-Georgia border on Friday.  The forecast called for the storm to bring rain, 20 to 35 mph breezes, and possible thunderstorms beginning early Sunday morning, and those of us with smart phones were checking the Weather Channel frequently on Saturday.  

We had more time to do so than I had expected.  Crowds were steady, if not jam-packed, on Saturday morning but tapered off quickly as the temperatures rose into the high 80s, and although the pre-storm breezes cooled things off a bit, the humidity was  high.  I tallied less than $600 in sales on the day, and as I headed back to Hardeeville, I glumly figured that Sunday would be scrubbed by the storm and I'd be underwater in more ways than one. 

And then, we dodged a meteorological bullet.  The storm tracked a bit further south than expected on Sunday.  Although clouds rolled in as the show opened and a squally shower hit briefly around 11:15, it stopped within 10 minutes and the skies cleared for the rest of the day. Crowds were light, but the buying energy picked up in the middle of the afternoon and I ended up writing about $1400 on the weekend--about half what I expected to do in such  an upscale venue, but at least I was going home with about $500 profit after expenses.  On a sales scale of zero-to-10 (where zero means I'm selling the van to get home, and 10 means I'm skipping all the way back to Fort Myers), this show rated about a 4.5.  Most of the folks around me rated it about the same; a couple lucky folks rated it 7 to 8, and (with a few exceptions) said they sold more on Sunday than on day one.

In terms of quality, too, this one's a mixed bag.  There were a lot of jewelers, although most of it was mid- to high-end in price and quality.  A wonderful painter of colorful, large-scale, mostly Western, landscapes across from me made a few small sales, but no big works that I noticed.  Another nearby artist who fashioned stunning sculpture from aluminum, sold a couple of large works at price points in the high hundreds.  There were a few beginning artists, and the aforementioned craft/buy-sell section, suggesting that not many artists applied for this show.

Hilton Head may not ever be a heavily attended show, at least not on Memorial Day weekend.  Although it seems like a great idea to capture returning seasonal residents who may have home improvement on their minds, it's also the first weekend of high season, and folks may still be unpacking.  Signage for brick-and-mortar retail, let alone art shows, is heavily restricted by the town.  Nary a McDonald's arch, billboard, or high-rise sign dots the landscape, and all the shopping centers are set back a bit from the main road and concealed by trees and shrubbery.  I saw only two "Art Festival" banners at each end of the show.  And although I'm sure Howard did his usual thorough job promoting the show in local media, first-day arrivals may not have been in town long enough to get the message.   My gut feel is that artists with high-quality work who exhibit here year after year will eventually build a profitable following.  And while I had expected to make lots more moolah at this show, there's enough potential--and enough really wonderful places to photograph wildlife--that I'll pencil this one in for next year.  For Florida artists who are heading north for the summer, or who live in the central and northern parts of the Sunshine State, this isn't a hard show to get to. 

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One quick note about the high winds we experienced at times, and a valuable lesson I learned.  Although we didn't get rained on, and the sun was out all afternoon on Sunday, the winds did get really gusty at times.  I had elected to leave my canvas sides on,  zipped down, and tied to the tent poles, even after the threat of rain went to zero.  That was nearly a serious mistake--a gust of wind blew right into the space between the side display wall and the canvas sides...and because I'd left the back canvas zipped up, the wind had nowhere to go.  The sides and back puffed up like a balloon, and the left side of the tent lifted off the ground a foot (thankfully, all the bungee cords held fast) and was wrenched clockwise about two feet.  No work was damaged, but as soon as my heartbeat got back to normal I removed the side walls so it wouldn't happen again.  The lesson:  If you're going to leave your side walls down, always make sure to unzip the zippers on the down-wind side of the tent, so that wind has a place to go!

Last quick note: Thanks to landscape photographer Steve Vaughn for taking me to a couple of great venues at Pinckney Wildlife Refuge on Saturday night, and lending me his camera to make a few images.  Much appreciated, and Steve was one of MANY great neighbors at this show.