This used to be in the top 3 of my personal favorite festivals. In the last couple of years, it hasn't had the same consistent level of top-notch artists as in the past. The artists they do have, for the most part are very good but there aren't that many WOWs anymore. I did see the same buy/sell guys as last year and there may have been a couple of others.
An interesting thing that they did was have an area that had several booths where the proceeds from the sales went to various charitable organizations. At first I thought they were buy/sell but they weren't. With so many organizations needing help, this was a good way to do it. The items were not so costly as to interfere with the other artist's businesses.
Patti and Bob Stern can tell you about all the artist stuff and hopefully they had fantastic sales.
I won't cross this off the list but I hope it starts to trend the other way, these last few years have been disappointing.
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Hi Geri and AFI's~
We have done this show before, maybe four years ago- what we remember is a small high end craft show and this year did not disappoint...our neighbors were very high end fiber artists who do the top ten art shows nationwide.We just love this show, and rejected the original Des Moines show, in favor of this one.My daughter was due to deliver a baby on Friday, and she gave birth four days early- so nice of her, so we could both be in attendance :) I would have stayed home, of course, to see my first grand daughter on the day she was born!We also felt that Highland Park is a wealthy area with greater potential for high end sales than Des Moines. Saturday was not great for us, and we didn't know what to except from Sunday. We had an appointment before the show in Vernon Hills with a buyer from the Deerfield show-possibly looking for another piece...and yes they bought- so we came to the Sunday show with a smile on our faces...then sold the largest dried piece we have ever sold in 18 years- delivered it and hung it after the break down of the show.The show ended up to be the best show since the end of April- easy set up, easy break down- 10-5 both days, small, special and on our list for next year!