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I'm sharing this because I suspect I'm not the only one who's ever done anything like this, and not the only one who's had ambivalent feelings about it. 

I had a very good summer of shows. I got into some top shows, my paintings generally sold well, and I enjoyed myself. I did 25 shows between February and September, and honestly, I was exhausted. 

In September, the dog of my heart died. She had liver cancer, and I had to euthanize her. This broke my heart and left me truly sad, deep inside. Two weeks afterwards, I rallied to attend a plein-air paintout in which I'd been invited to participate. I wasn't up to being social, but I painted and met nice painters, and enjoyed myself. The sadness ebbed. 

Right afterwards, I headed to Dayton, Ohio, for a show. I had a cheap Air BnB rental ($42 for an entire house), so I got there early, to rest and finish my taxes before starting the show. On Thursday, my husband called to tell me that another of our dogs had died.

I went home. Canceled out of the show (lost my booth fee, even though the show called someone from the wait list to take my place, but OK). I simply could not face people, could not interact, could not engage.

A month later, I realized I just needed a dog. I'd been painting, I'd been gearing up for my final three shows, in Texas, but I was still sad. Still lacking energy, drive, hope. My husband found a rescue dog who looked good, so I met her on my way to Texas and made arrangements to pick her up on the way home.

I got to Texas and drove to my first show, Huffhines Art Trails, in a total downpour. Cars were off the road the entire way. It poured, thundered, lightninged, and the show was canceled. I looked ahead to the weather and saw that hurricane-driven rain was predicted for the next weekend, too, when I was scheduled for a show in Houston. 

So there I was, stranger in a strange land, and all I wanted was to go home. I was tired. Spent. Staying with strangers who were nice, but with whom I couldn't be myself. I tried a couple different things, went to Austin (unbeknownst to me, there was a Formula 1 racing event there that weekend, traffic was horrible, there were no rooms to be had). I tried to paint, but everywhere I could have gone, it was raining. I thought about heading to Arizona to see my dad, but he was away for the week. Nothing worked. Nothing felt right. 

Finally, I just decided to go home. Blow off my two remaining shows, lose the booth fees, just check out. 

The moment I made the decision, my world righted itself. I headed east, got my little dog (photo below), and am happily, safely at home. 

I've since felt tremendous guilt about skipping those shows. I've felt that if I were really a tough, serious fair-going artist, I'd have stuck it out. But I have also felt tremendous power and freedom in my decision. One reason to work for yourself is to do just what I did, not work when I really, truly, in my heart didn't feel like working. 

Of course I worry about the money, but there were no guarantees that those other Texas shows would have been good ones for me. I have commissions to paint, I have a project to start, and people have begun to call me asking to buy the paintings I still have. 

I really wanted to share my experience, even though I suspect some artists might deride me for my decisions. It was hard to make these choices, but they were the right ones. And maybe my experience will help someone else. 

ps, Hi, Connie! 

For the upcoming Atalaya Arts and Crafts Festival in Murrells Inlet, SC, AccuWeather is predicting over 4” total rain on Thursday (setup day) and Friday (setup / opening day), with showers lasting 17 hours on Thursday (with winds of 20-32 mph) and 20 hours on Friday due to an Atlantic storm coming onshore around Myrtle Beach that was thought to have “tropical characteristics” a few days ago.

Fortunately, we will not be participating this year.  I was wondering what/how other participants are doing as the storm progresses:

• Anyone canceling? 
• Reports from the front line?
• Any flooding of the castle?

Did the 2nd Annual Dewey Beach Arts Festival (juried) last weekend with my hand-poured scented soy candles as my product. This is my craft business which supports my fine art show habit. So please don't make fun of a product which generates twice as much revenue as my award-winning fine art paintings... 

The scheduled Saturday show date was an off-and-on stormy rain-out and thankfully show management called off the event via text and e-mail very, very, early in the AM after apparently staying up late to watch the weather (I got both - just before I headed out the door at 5 AM for my 7 AM set-up time)

Sadly some folks read the Friday e-mail which said things were a "GO", but forgot that the e-mail also said check your e-mail before you leave on show day as things might change with the weather. So a few folks showed up on Saturday after a several hour ride to find the show called due to weather - and then checked their e-mail and texts...............

The scheduled rain date was the day following and after a damp set-up, the weather turned sunny, warmed up and was beautiful.... A perfect Mother's Day - unless you're related to Mother Nature....... There was music, kids art and activities, some free food, fine art, photography, craft and jewelry.

I saw a 'professional' tent rental company come in and rebar-stake a rental tent right into the asphalt of a town street...I was wondering why the underground utilities were marked....now I knew why... Couldn't believe I was watching this guy sledging rebar through the asphalt.. knowing there was a natural gas line running down his side of the street. The underground utilities mark-outs are only so accurate (as I know from my environmental geology days of drilling monitoring wells in urban settings) and you just don't go punching rebar into the asphalt several feet without a whole lot more information on the utilities.... Reviewed the show rules - there was nothing in there about staking in the street.........

Unfortunately, this beautiful weather was due to a frontal boundary passing through with very closely spaced isobars (this means it's gonna get real windy) The winds got to sustained 20-30 mph with higher gusts and they called the show 1/2 hr early...

To my knowledge, despite a preponderance of EZ-ups, nobody had any tent flying/collapsing/sailing - and this is because show management stressed bringing lots of weight. They also helped lots of folks, including me break down in the gale...  I had over 200 lbs of weight on my tent and it was still pushing it around - but not picking it up. Part of this was having my sidewalls up which kept the wind out from under the canopy top, but still acted as a sail.

As Robert has said elsewhere - rubber feet on your tent legs are essential to keeping skidding to a minimum when on pavement, but this doesn't help if your pavement is getting covered with blowing sand.

The event was juried during the application process and was judged onsite, with ribbons and gift certificates being awarded to the winners. Several jewelers said there was too much jewelry (a more common lament these days - yet lots of jewelers keep applying to events and juries keep overloading the category - but that's an entirely different discussion).

Sales were slow to start happening. Part of this was due to the weather changeover from marginal to beautiful and part of this was waiting for church services and Mother's Day brunches to be completed. I saw lots of packages being carried about; including lots of stuff with frames. Despite the slow start, rain date, and slightly early close, my sales were as good as the year before - which isn't outstanding, but I covered costs and made a profit.... I had multiple repeat business customers who had seen me at other events and had an events planner make an inquiry about wholesale... (Yay!) There's nothing like having people stand at your booth and praise your products to other potential buyers... You can't buy this sort of advertising for a consumable craft item - especially if you aren't kettle corn, corn-dogs, or sugared nuts

Show management (made up of local business people - The Dewey Beach Business Partnership) was competent, helpful and were looking out for the artists and artisans. They get good marks for keeping everyone well informed about the weather-related cancellation and showed good judgement in calling the event because of weather.

Do the show again? Yup. Howard Alan quality event - nope. Easy set-up and windy teardown. Well attended for a second-annual in a pre-season beach town. Well publicized in the area, but not in Wilmington, DE or Philadelphia to my knowledge. Wouldn't do this one yet with high-end high-priced items - I think there's a limited market for this at this event still.... However, I may bring my art and my craft next year to this event... This event has potential if management keeps working on it as they have for the first two events...

What could they fix? Hmm... They could work on the maintenance of the venue - by having better provisions for puddle problems for the next time... but they did ok considering the situation they were handed

Greetings all!  I have been on a hiatus (of doing fairs) since May - mostly due to the scorching heat we get here in MD...  and since this has been a record breaking year in the heat department, I think I made a right choice.  However, was the choice right in doing The Maryland Seafood Festival?

The nuts and bolts... 

Dates:  Sept. 10/11 from 10-9 p.m. 

Location:  Sandy Point Beach Park, right on the Chesapeake Bay (the Bay Bridge is what is in the background of the photo) Annapolis, MD.

Set-up:  I will get back to that one - long answer...

Space fee I paid was $425 for an under the tent 10x20 space.  This included electric and 8 ft. tables.  There were different fees if you wanted to set up a canopy say for a 10x10 space and so on. 

Weather:  Questionable, but mostly nice DURING the event.

Sales:  FOR ME, not bad at all considering...   details to follow too.

My thoughts...  The stage was set for the event a few days prior to the event.  Before Friday we had 5 long days and nights of endless rain with LOTS of flooding in many areas of Maryland.  Got an email at 10:50 Thursday night that set-up won't begin on Friday at 10:00, but 2:00.  I arrived at 2:15 to a muddy mess and the big tens up...  the bad news is it is on top of 2 inches of standing water (and muddy grass).  We were then told no one could go on the grounds until at least 4:00.  Meanwhile food vendors with their big trucks could making it REALLY bad for everyone else.  There is only one way in and out of the grounds (via a one road path)  that too was muddy.  Finally getting my space - as it wasn't and couldn't be marked due to the standing water, I decided to try and get as much as I can on tables and pray some of the water will recede if it doesn't rain over night.  I did get cedar chips and some alpha grass from a pet shop nearby - 5 hardware stores in the area weren't carrying straw yet.  And no the parks and recs as well as event management didn't and wouldn't provide straw.  I did bring carpet (which was later sacrificed to appease any golems) which was put on top of the grass and cedar (at least it smelled somewhat decent in my area) outside of it smelled questionable.  It wasn't until 8:00 p.m. I got out of the park and setting up.  I can say ALL vendors who beyond pissed on how it was all handled - no parking attendances or security to direct who can and cannot get on the land, no volunteers, and we didn't get electric until 12 noon Saturday.  During the whole weekend I was still under 1 inch of rain.  If I didn't bring the grass and cedar and carpet, people would have never been able to see my products nor venture into my space - the farthest point in the tent was my booth, which was at the farthest part of the fair.          

Sorry for harping on how miserable we were, but I spent all Saturday in bare feet standing in that water as my shoes were ruined not to mentioned badly sunburned (the back of my booth is where the sun shone in - which was MY FAULT for not bringing sunblock and the tent was open, no sides).  Saturday wasn't a bust though - sales and people were good!  I must add - for me.  I have had fellow "artists" (I don't think many were true handmade by the artist present - mind you a few of the wood carvings, nautical art, etc. - was beautiful!) periodically come into my booth and ask...  "so how are you doing?"  On a good note I covered all of my expenses Saturday - including paying for some friends for helping me with sales while I did candle making demos and took bathroom breaks.  Sunday didn't make too much, but must be one of the lucky ones as many didn't do well.  And on that note, I think the ones who didn't do well were the ones who couldn't shake off the anger from walking their merchandise into their booth about 1/8 mile away from the parking lot in muddy conditions, not having a nice display - some didn't use table cloths for instance.  There were those who should have done better - selling the right stuff at the right place, but had more lookers than buyers.  So, all in all I call myself lucky.  Very lucky.  If the ground conditions were better or at least did something to make the situation better, it could have been a VERY successful day for all involved. 

I felt bad for the food vendors - they were all in the mud and you had to be in mud to get your food.   While I do feel some of the blame for the way things went down was partially the promoters fault, I lay most of the blame on the park.  This event happens every year, during the middle of hurricane season and they would rather have big mud pits and patrons and exhibitors fall than put down straw, mulch, etc. to make for a better venue.   I am just thankful there were plenty of people who came out for the music, the seafood, the seafood cooking demonstrations, the crab picking contests, etc. or we wouldn't have had many people come - the arts and crafts were something to do.  I did get several people find me saying they saw my website and wanted to buy from me - those were heart warming moments!

I would say about 6,000 or so were there for the weekend - I couldn't really tell only because the art and crafts were soooo far away from all the action.  There is potential for more, but with it also being on Sunday with to big football games and 9/11 - it didn't help.   If the place had better grounds, it would have been a fabulous fair and I am saying that after having sunburns, mosquito bites, VERY sore muscles, etc. yet still walked away with a decent profit.  Note:  I am not mentioning numbers as numbers, to me doesn't mean the same thing from one medium to another, but I can say I did over $1000 and I am just a candle maker who also makes lavender products and my own incense sticks (which ended up being the biggest seller).    I can say I did walk the show a few years ago and it was hopping, and was sunny when I was there, but they still had rain issues then.  I also liked the variety of exhibitors then too, than this year - everyone said too much jewelry (not that it was bad), but you have that - a person selling plants, another selling African carved wood animals, etc.  mixed with some true artisans - it wasn't the best  in variety this year.  - Michelle

P.S.  I did take the photo with my IPhone - didn't want to risk my camera getting dirty and with the back light couldn't get a good shot of the booth...  Sorry!