Our last show of our summer schedule was the Lake Chelan Fine Arts show. Show seems like it could really have some poential. It has been re-started after a few years lapsed. The artists who returned this year that had done it last year all raved about how good it was last year.
Not sure what changed this year, but there was a serious lack of attendance. Overall, most of the artists I talked to said they did okay, people who showed up were spending money, no one was saying they had an absolutely horrible show but then again, no one was raving about the show.
We were all raving about the volunteers, they were plentiful, visible, treated us to home made scones Sunday morning plus lots of other treats all weekend. Lots of fresh fruit from the area was available for the artists. They were contstantly bringing around water, asking if we needed breaks, etc. The Arts Council is really trying hard to build this show and they are doing a lot of things right, are open to suggestions and with a little more focused marketing to the tourists, this show seems like it should be a lot better than it turned out for most of us.
Chelan is a tourist town in the North Central Cascade mountains in WA, situated on Lake Chelan. There are a lot of summer homes in the area, with lots of tourists that are here to play on the lake or visit the wineries. Venue was the Riverfront Park, absolutely beautiful location. Load in / load out was not too bad, you couldn't drive to your spot so unless you had a spot on the perimeter of the park you had to hand truck your stuff, but it was very far and there were volunteers to help if you needed it, especially during load out.
Temps were in the 80's for the highs, thank goodness for the lake breeze, especially Sunday afternoon during load out. We had one of the sunny locations, other booths had primarily shade. This was a 3 day show where we really only sold on one day, Saturday. However, that wasn't the trend for everyone, it was a bit strange but most of us who had good sales on Saturday had poor sales on Friday and vice versa. Didn't talk to anyone who had consistent sales between Friday and Saturday, Sunday was slow for everyone.
One of the best parts of the entire weeked? Dunking in the lake after load out!! Felt great and was a great way to cool off before starting the 5 hour drive home.
