So far in my summer northeast swing, I've dodged a few meteorological bullets, and this week was no exception. As was the case at Ocean City MD a few weeks ago, Friday's weather was brutal--about 2 inches of rain fell from Friday afternoon through midnight, but skies began clearing by the time artists arrived to begin setup. This caused chalk-marking of the booth spaces to be delayed from Friday to early Sat. a.m., but promoter Marcy Boroff (of Renaissance Craftables) communicated this in a Friday-evening email, so there were no big surprises.
It's tough for me to comment on all aspects of this show, so I'm hoping that others will fill in the blanks. The reason: I applied to this long-running show after the deadline (but immediately after several artists I had asked, raved about it). I was initially wait-listed, with the explanation that construction on one of the streets that hosted the show was causing a scramble for additional spaces, and if they became available I'd be offered one. Two weeks later, they were, and I was in.
Setup, at least for the artists on the "extension", was a breeze. Our booths were the sidewalk, facing the buildings, not the street. So although there was automobile traffic behind our booths all day, it also made streetside parking available, so we could unload and park right behind our booths. And as temperatures rose toward 90 degrees under clear skies, we were happy that tall shade trees and buildings cooled things off. Folks in the main festival area, set up in the street without benefit of maple trees, were pretty much parboiled by 3 PM.
The downside was that although the new spaces were along the same road (Kings Highway) as the main show, show goers had to cross a busy intersection to get to us, and there were no "More Art This Way!" type of signs to alert them to our existence. So our group of 20 or so artists--who called ourselves "The Orphans"--had pretty light traffic on Saturday.
The show has unusual hours: 11-7 on Saturday, and noon to 5 on Sunday (although many artists opened as early as 10 AM on Day 2). As the title of the show implies, this show is geared more toward crafters, and less toward fine artists, And although I saw some really nice work as I strolled about on Sunday morning, overall the show quality was middle-of-the-road.
On Sunday crowds picked up festival wide, and the good news is, they came prepared to buy. Most of the folks with whom I spoke come to this show year after year. One Sunday-night TV report cited a police estimate of 100,000 attendees, though I'll bet that one came from the Chamber of Commerce. Nonetheless, crowds were definitely heavy; I tripled my sales from the previous day and wound up with sales well into four figures. Marcy came by to introduce herself on Saturday and good-naturedly chided me to "get my app in on time next year." Based on good results in the face of the layout challenges, I don't see any reason to book anywhere else. I'd like to see what I could do on the "main drag" of this popular show.
So, as I said: If you did the show on the main drag, your results may vary. Let's hear some comments!
Comments
How do you power the 2 fans running all day? I just bought a power inverter and a new, energy efficient fan and it only gave me 2 hours before it died.