This is my first year of getting back into doing art shows after an almost 20-year hiatus. As such, I am very much a newbie and relearning the ropes, including what types of shows to watch out for. Reading the call for artists for the Old Town San Diego Art Fair, I was expecting 20,000 customers to come through with money to burn. Oops. Not so much. Of course, part of it can be blamed on the fact that gas prices leapt by 40 cents per gallon that very weekend (!) and perhaps a lot of San Diegans were reluctant to get out and about, but I think that my husband's observation of Old Town being a tourist destination was also a valid point. Many of the artists I spoke with were having a stinker of a show. A couple of nearby booths seemed to be hauling in the bucks, however. What I noticed about them was that they had great price points for impulse buys, such as less than $25. I mention impulse buys because one customer said to me that my prices seemed high for impulse buys, and so I learned something here: tourist destination shows are something very different from shows that people go to specifically to buy art.
The show was organized by two entities: West Coast Artists and the Old Town San Diego chamber of commerce. The people I met from these groups were VERY nice and helpful at the show, but I had some issues about getting juried into the show: 1) Artists had to pay the usual application fee, but also had to pay the booth fee up front at the time of application. I had never seen this before, and I didn't like tying up my money, not knowing if I would be accepted. I would not apply to shows like this in the future unless experienced artists told me directly that the show was worth it. 2) The organizers were very slow in letting me know if I had been accepted. When I called West Coast artists three weeks before the show to ask about my status, I was told that the Chamber of Commerce people hadn't even sent them my photos yet. As an out-of-towner, this gave me short notice for being able to arrange lodging and send out announcements to my email list.
I would love to get feedback from seasoned pros about what to look for in shows where the art buyers go, and what to watch out for in the future. Thanks!
