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Bongo Java is what a coffee house should be like, Battered and Fried has the best sushi rolls, Art and Invention Gallery has the most amazing collection of artists and art and the Antique store at the end of the street has the sweetest ladies behind the desk and great unique finds… more on these fantastic places later….

It was also so refreshing and fun to be surrounding by some of the most amazingly talented artists on the planet. I have no complaints on the quality of art and artists at this show, everyone there was over the top talented, and I was glad to be in their company. I believe this fabulous group of artists was assembled primarily through word of mouth through a couple of other awesome artists trying to pull together a good show and it worked. I would like to work with this group of people every weekend.

Now the not so positives….First I would like to preface, that I, like most of us here, make my living doing this. I don’t have another day job, this is it. My busiest year was over 40+ art shows, I now average 2-3 a month, all over the country. This isn’t my first dog and pony show. In over 10 years of doing this I have only run into a few promoters or show directors who have been rude or condescending, most treat us like the professionals we are.
Not this time.

The first red flag - We and some other artists I spoke to emailed the promoter for a ‘heads up’ on the Nashville weather/ flood situation. As most of the country was aware, Nashville had experienced a natural disaster and was under water 2 weeks before the show, and we were a bit concerned about whether the show would go on, or what to expect after traveling 750 miles across country. The promoter did not respond. I figured they might be overwhelmed with the crisis and decided to network with everyone we knew in the Nashville area. With the weather looking bright and sunny we decided to chance it and headed out. The only email we received from the promoter was a rules list with a ‘map’ attached…. More about the ‘map’ later.

We cased out the location on Friday night when we arrived. A mild panic set in when we found no signage, no indication of an art show. We stopped in the Kustom Thrills Tattoo shop, and they had no idea if there was an art show in town. We wandered around for a bit and saw a couple of traffic barriers on the curb and thought that might be an indication of a show. When we got to the barriers, we saw the telltale painted numbers and booth corner marks on the asphalt and assumed we found the spot. We noticed also at this point that booths were half on and half off the curb. Doable, but a heads up would have been nice.

Constructive Criticism #1 – Communicate with your artists. Let them know what is going on with as much info as possible. Send them an email assuring them that the community is recovering from the recent natural disaster and looking forward to seeing them, accompanied by a map with booth numbers on it, and most definitely any and all information pertaining to their booth or location setup that they might want to be prepared for, i.e. half on half off the curb. You really can’t over communicate.

Setup was to begin at 8a Saturday, show opened at 11. We arrived just after 7a to setup, just to avoid the mad rush of an 8a lineup. We showed up with a fellow artist that we were traveling with. We pulled into an empty parking lot midway between the just one block long show. A couple of other artists were also there early setting up. We walked over to the promoter and her two companions and tried to introduce ourselves.
‘Do you have your map?’ we were asked. ‘No, we didn’t see the reason to print it’, we responded. We were curtly handed a map, which for the record was not much more than a rectangle on a piece of paper and told drive to the top of the hill, and she would meet us up there in a few minutes. As I began to ask her for our booth numbers as we were already parked, she just turned her back on us and walked away. With a raised eyebrow, I got back in the car and we both drove to the top of the hill and waited for her to check us in. Artist friend checked in first, with my partner standing behind her. In the most condescending tone possible, the promoter told my partner that she would be walking our artist friend to her booth and then she would be back to talk to
him. Let’s keep in mind that there are approximately 55 booths here, divided equally up and down the street. It wasn’t brain surgery. Five minutes later she returns and walks us to our booth, which was exactly where we had originally parked. We watched her do this for the next hour until the backup of artists was too much.

As we had figured out the night before, we were half on half off the curb. With a bus stop in our spot. We started to assemble our tent, an Archtop Canopy for the record. Our tent does not ‘pop up’. After four needless interruptions, assuring her we understood how to set up our booth, finally we were ready to move our assembled tent into position. But now we were thwarted by the previously mentioned bus stop. We snugged up to it as tightly as humanly possible, but we were still about a foot over the mark of where the fire department wanted everyone backed up to. The promoter came down again and told us we had to back up. I said that
was not possible, as we were as snugged up and tight to the bus stop as possible and she said, ‘oh, I thought you would go over it’. Aghast I just looked at her and said that that would not be happening. And just to assure you dear reader that this one spot with a bus stop in it was not a fluke, the spot two down from me had a telephone pole support wire going through the center of it, and a few other booths on the street also had some
anomalies. This after an earlier snarky comment from her about walking the show and marking off booths, These anomalies could not help but be noticed and avoided.

Time to grab a quick coffee, before the show starts, at the aforementioned fantastic little coffee shop at the corner of the show, Bongo Java. Standing in line we started chatting with a few people around us, as they all wanted to know what was going on. We told them that there was an art show on the street with artists from all over the country here to display and sell their work. Again no one in there knew anything about an art show.

Ok – setup complete! Open the gates we’re ready to go!

Each and every person that walked into our tent that morning was a local that accidentally stumbled upon us and hadn’t had any information about what was going on. One of the other artists that participated in the show that was a local did mention that they had seen a write up about it in a local independent paper. But not one person we talked to during the first day had shown up to this show as a destination. They hadn’t heard a word of it and all lived in the neighborhood. Needing a break, and their being only one porta potty working (and I don’t think that was really part of the show, could be wrong though) I went across to the gallery next to me, Art and Invention Gallery. A wonderful gallery full of awesome original art work. Chatted up the gallery owners, who coincidentally are on the local arts council, who informed us that only two days before had the promoter stopped by to let them know what was going on and give them a poster. Up the street to the antique store, same story. Most of the merchants in the area we spoke to were vocal about being annoyed at an outsider coming in and not communicating with them or involving them. Their words.

Constructive Criticism #2: Promote your show please. Involve the community, make them feel a part of it, get buy in. A poster delivered 2 days before the show is not promotion. Let’s see a banner please. This is particularly important if you are expecting them to provide the bathrooms, food and refreshments. Also if you are not going to provide trash cans, and expect the patrons and artists to dispose of their garbage in the local merchant’s trash receptacles, you should tell the merchants that. They were not happy.

Saturday we spent the day telling all our customers to go home and tell their friends, hoping for a busier Sunday. Sales based on the fact finding we had done should probably be considered fabulous, but we were definitely disappointed. Sunday’s traffic was a bit better, and we did hear that there were people that were there as a destination spot because their friends had called them the day before. Sunday’s weather was sunny but HOT HOT HOT. Our glass atrium phone booth wing didn’t help matters, allowing for almost no ventilation.

Ok time for the wrap up I guess…

Fabulous location, great artist participation, arrogant show director who didn’t communicate with the community or the artists, sales were barely adequate. I have seen a few blogs and FB posts from artists who said they had a good show. When I read them, I hear the excitement for the East Nashville locale,
and I concur. I think East Nashville is a fantastic place for an art show, and would love to see this festival develop, but I am very disappointed in this promoter.

I get this was a first time show. I understand that it takes work to build a show and get a following. I love that
fellow artists jumped on board to try to build this brand. I would have like to have been treated with more professionalism, and since this promoter professes to have a lot of experience running shows, I would not have expected so many amateur mistakes (obstructed booth assignments, lack of facilities, no trash receptacles, no
communication).