Greetings from Florida and the Englewood Fine Arts Festival. This show is held annually just off the corner of Dearborn and Mango in downtown Englewood, Florida and put on by the local rotary club. The weather was a close to perfect but maybe a little warm for some. The show hours are great – both Saturday and Sunday were from 10-4. Set up was a breeze. One could drive right to their booth and unload and a number of booths, including mine, allowed the artists to park right behind their booth. Ditto for the tear down. Nice.
Saturday was packed, it reminded me of salmon swimming upstream in the pacific northwest. Sunday was lighter but ended up being my better of the two days. All in all I did over 10 times my booth fee so I was happy. I also noticed a number of purchases walking by my location, the potter close to me appeared to do well, and I spoke to one painter friend and she had done well. There was a copper flowery-type booth down from me that had items starting at a buck and running to around a 100 for a wall piece that was about three foot across by a foot tall and folks were hauling stuff out of there by the wheel barrel full.
There were about 100 booths and were lined on both sides down Dearborn street. Most were pretty decent quality with a few suspects booths. But hey, isn't there always anymore. I met Nels Johnson down the way and shared a few showisms, and then back to work.
The rotarians had some free beer and wine along with snacks Saturday after the show. The beer was cold and much appreciated after a warm day. The rotary announced that they had estimated 5,000 in attendance, and this came from their collecting a buck from people walking in. The crowd was string from about 9:30 in the morning until about 3 in the afternoon. Lots of folks looking and taking measurements in my booth, I have larger recycled metal sculpture pieces, and they came back and bought on Sunday.
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