We are 4 weeks into an 8 week road trip and eagerly anticipated our first Amdur Productions show. Our flight for setup was 6:30pm. We arrived at 6:40 from the campground out in the "burbs". I sent my wife in for check in and waited across the street from the park. The scene was pretty chaotic. Vans, trailers and vehicles all over, some double parked, with city traffic streaming on by everyone. My wife came back with our load in pass and we proceeded to the far side near our booth location for the dolly in. Well it was just as bad there too. No spaces at the curb and we again parked in a traffic lane across from the park to wait. Movement was non existent, after about an hour we decided to dolly across the four lanes of city traffic, what a nightmare! We did finally managed to move to the curb and finished setup close to 10:15 pm. Now our space in the park was one of the good ones on concrete as opposed to grass and under some nice shade trees. We did have a park bench in our space but Amy got staff members to quickly move it out of the way. It rained some overnight on Fri and briefly on Sat making for muddy mush in lots of areas including booths on the grass side of the walk. While crowds were decent, most did not seem to want to make purchases and they also stayed on the concrete as much as possible, hurting the grass both locations some. We ended up just barely making expenses. I want to mention that on load in 2 vehicles at the curb were parked I prime load in spots and showed no activity for the entire duration of our setup, still there when we left. How inconsiderate! For load out you needed to be broken down to get a pass. We did just that and got ours at 7:10pm. I retrieved the van started circling the park as there is no staging area. After 12 trips around I parked in a traffic lane across the street again and waited. With the assistance of a staff member and an illegal u turn I finally got a spot at the curb to dolly out starting at 8:45pm. We all needed to be out of the park by 11 or face a city fine. We finished after 10 pm. This was the most difficult load in - out in our 15 years of shows. We do about 26 per year. Yuk! Needless to say we were very disappointed with this event. On the plus side, good booth location, helpful staff on site, moderate crowds both days. This event could be much better with some tweaking on the setup tear down process. If sales had been stronger, we might have tried again but it is far too difficult for the amount we grossed.
Just reading about how hard some of the load in and load outs are - many of you artists work sooo hard. If customers only knew what you all go through every weekend just to bring them special handmade work.
I just put up a review of this show too. It was brutally hot. My set up was slopping grass with a.mud puddle in front. Hard since my set up is rolling clorhes racks. All the clothes slid to the front and findng a spot where all 4 wheels were on the ground was tough. It was so NOT my customer, although I was surprised. The audience was taking a casual stroll not out shopping, I know rthe weather was a big factor, but I don't think I fit into the equation very well. A lot of wall art and jewelry very little fiber. Grueling set up and tear down . I do like the show organizer though, and there was plenty of advertising just downtown Chicago on a weekend, who's in town ?
Maybe someone should invite Mayor Emmanuel to join in as he is an advocate for getting Chicago headlines off of the crime and onto the greatness of the city.
I agree with the issue of lugging around works in the city. The grant Park location does not offer much in the way of convenient parking for the patron or a designated pick up area where they could drive up the claim their purchase. In fact the tow trucks were out in force looking for untended vehicles parked in the lanes to towaway. Saw several artist vehicles go by by at load out.
Was wondering about other people's experiences because this was my first time exhibiting at an art fair and have nothing to compare it to. I did very poorly sales wise even tho I was given an award for my booth and photography. I was in the grass and it was not the greatest of conditions. The booths on the concrete seemed to have a big advantage, but again this was my first show. I'm hoping it gets better at the next one!
There is another reason that sales are soft in these seemingly perfect locations.... if you are a customer, do you really want to lug a package around all day? It seems that Amdur chooses great locations, but doesn't solve the artist problem. In this case, wouldn't a solution be to have a central location for check-in and picking up packages? I just finished the Chicago Botanic Gardens in Glencoe. This was a super great location, but it is the promoter's responsibility to make it "work". This was certainly not done. Although the staff were nice people, I waited 1 1/2 hours with a "relief flag" waving and no show by staff, finally closing my booth to head for a much needed respite. If you like pretzels, water and coffee as your amenities, then Amdur is the promoter to choose especially for a $695 show. If you want a load out in the pitch dark at 10:30 PM, then again, Amdur is the promoter. This is not personal, this is business. I am a consumer. I had a neighbor who hung heavy stained glass mobiles 6' into the aisle. Was anything done? NO. Anyone say liability in this room? He also decided to build an 8' tall wall of his bins (empty and full), 12' long leaning against my tent. It took Amdur 2 hours to have him break it down and store around his booth. It started looking like a junk yard. For being a botanical only show, there were 2 purse vendors in addition to a myriad group of non botanical related vendors. I would have expected better with the build up and the price. It is very disappointing that my first 2 shows that I have had with Amdur were both of this nature. My first, Barrington, I had a 7:00 pm load in on the only unlit segment of road. Can you say, try to set up in the dark? Poor judgement call. It also lead to the theft of a $600 panel from my tent along with 2 other thefts in close proximity. Finally, I can say that Amdur DOES pick great venues, but doesn't seem to create a workable solution for those venues.
The comment by Lori about me playing Frogger across the traffic was amusing. Sorry I did not think of it at the time, it may have helped ease the pain.
I have read the articles on the site for a very long time.. my daughter in law is a very talented artist and over the years I have assisted her at some of the finer art shows. I have never commented, until now, on anyones opinion about other artists, shows, promoters, etc. I guess today is the day. Nancy, I dont' know you, but I did take some offense to your comments regarding Oriental persons as not being the type to buy anything from us--- I have a question for you..Who is US? This is the USA and we are a melting pot -- like it or not.-- further for you information, Oriental people are some of the wealthiest in the USA--they work harder and longer, take care of each other carefully and save their money to enrich their lives. All values we used to adhere to in this country. When they make purchases they choose carefully. I don't want to start an argument or a debate. Just wish we all could look for the good in people and remember that a few bad apples don't ruin the whole bushel.
We find the Chicago Tourists have plenty of money for Art & they LOVE to spend!!! I noticed that in Chicago more than other places we go, if they see something they want, they buy it NOW, rather than "I just got here~if it's still here when I get back ~it's meant to be "( & all that CRAP)~Chicago tourists more than anywhere else say "I'm buying it NOW so no one else gets it!!!" Wow, we should all write a book on the comments we hear everywhere... We LOVE Chicago tourists~they're GREAT!!!!!!!!!! We do well with ALL tourists as they usually want to bring that unique something home & are usually they're in a good mood doing the vacation thing.
Comments
Just reading about how hard some of the load in and load outs are - many of you artists work sooo hard. If customers only knew what you all go through every weekend just to bring them special handmade work.
Maybe someone should invite Mayor Emmanuel to join in as he is an advocate for getting Chicago headlines off of the crime and onto the greatness of the city.
Was wondering about other people's experiences because this was my first time exhibiting at an art fair and have nothing to compare it to. I did very poorly sales wise even tho I was given an award for my booth and photography. I was in the grass and it was not the greatest of conditions. The booths on the concrete seemed to have a big advantage, but again this was my first show. I'm hoping it gets better at the next one!
There is another reason that sales are soft in these seemingly perfect locations.... if you are a customer, do you really want to lug a package around all day? It seems that Amdur chooses great locations, but doesn't solve the artist problem. In this case, wouldn't a solution be to have a central location for check-in and picking up packages? I just finished the Chicago Botanic Gardens in Glencoe. This was a super great location, but it is the promoter's responsibility to make it "work". This was certainly not done. Although the staff were nice people, I waited 1 1/2 hours with a "relief flag" waving and no show by staff, finally closing my booth to head for a much needed respite. If you like pretzels, water and coffee as your amenities, then Amdur is the promoter to choose especially for a $695 show. If you want a load out in the pitch dark at 10:30 PM, then again, Amdur is the promoter. This is not personal, this is business. I am a consumer. I had a neighbor who hung heavy stained glass mobiles 6' into the aisle. Was anything done? NO. Anyone say liability in this room? He also decided to build an 8' tall wall of his bins (empty and full), 12' long leaning against my tent. It took Amdur 2 hours to have him break it down and store around his booth. It started looking like a junk yard. For being a botanical only show, there were 2 purse vendors in addition to a myriad group of non botanical related vendors. I would have expected better with the build up and the price. It is very disappointing that my first 2 shows that I have had with Amdur were both of this nature. My first, Barrington, I had a 7:00 pm load in on the only unlit segment of road. Can you say, try to set up in the dark? Poor judgement call. It also lead to the theft of a $600 panel from my tent along with 2 other thefts in close proximity. Finally, I can say that Amdur DOES pick great venues, but doesn't seem to create a workable solution for those venues.
Thanks Staci-- I would also substitue "Asian" however, "Oriental" was the term used originally.
I have read the articles on the site for a very long time.. my daughter in law is a very talented artist and over the years I have assisted her at some of the finer art shows. I have never commented, until now, on anyones opinion about other artists, shows, promoters, etc. I guess today is the day. Nancy, I dont' know you, but I did take some offense to your comments regarding Oriental persons as not being the type to buy anything from us--- I have a question for you..Who is US? This is the USA and we are a melting pot -- like it or not.-- further for you information, Oriental people are some of the wealthiest in the USA--they work harder and longer, take care of each other carefully and save their money to enrich their lives. All values we used to adhere to in this country. When they make purchases they choose carefully. I don't want to start an argument or a debate. Just wish we all could look for the good in people and remember that a few bad apples don't ruin the whole bushel.
We find the Chicago Tourists have plenty of money for Art & they LOVE to spend!!! I noticed that in Chicago more than other places we go, if they see something they want, they buy it NOW, rather than "I just got here~if it's still here when I get back ~it's meant to be "( & all that CRAP)~Chicago tourists more than anywhere else say "I'm buying it NOW so no one else gets it!!!" Wow, we should all write a book on the comments we hear everywhere... We LOVE Chicago tourists~they're GREAT!!!!!!!!!! We do well with ALL tourists as they usually want to bring that unique something home & are usually they're in a good mood doing the vacation thing.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next