Ok, so I took the plunge. I got a space at the Artegon, formerly Festival Bay Mall, 5250 International Drive, Orlando. While I had my reservations, I budgeted it out to try this for six months. (only six month and 12 month leases available at the time I signed.)
Nuts and bolts -
County and City License - about $100, takes a few hours to do, but relatively painless procedure.
Insurance - About $325, for one year. easy to do.
Signage - About $375, mandatory fee from Artegon.
Security Deposit - $500 (I have heard of varying amounts from other booths, your experience may vary.)
First months' electricity fee - $187.50
I think that covers it. So for about $1500, you get a 10ftx20ft cage to fill. I signed in December, but due to prior commitments, I opened doors February 1st. After 1 month of being opened, I grossed $1075. Not a lot when you consider you need to have your doors opened 60 hours a week. But from talking to the other artists, I did very well. Granted Jan, Feb, and Mar are slow months for Orlando.
But there has been a lot of rollover in vendor/artists. My row has 10 booths, and since I have been there, 6 have left for various reasons, but mostly because of low sales. I did a walkthrough on my first week, and counted 35 empty booths, and 10 buy/sell booths. My walkthrough on march 1st had 37 empty booths, and about 25 buy/sell booths, including one psychic. All this in a potential of 165 booths (some booths have expanded into adjoining booths.)
A lot of this is due to, I believe, telling potential vendors that this would be a forum for basically, a high end Art Fair, every weekend, naturally with great sales to go along with it. While it may become that in a couple years, it is slow to start. Some vendors go for days or a week between sales. Some of the vendors haven't helped, by either opening late or closing early, or not showing up at all. When enough people walk thru and the shops aren't open, they won't return, and tell their friends the same. Today, on my row, at 11:15am, out of 10 potential shops, (1 shop is a double); 3 aren't open, and one is empty. Not a very inviting view for potential customers to walk down.
Marketing is bad, but they just hired new staff for it, so I hope it improves. I hear every other day, "I didn't even know this was here, I just walked out of Bass Pro Shops and here it is! when did this happen?" or I get "This place was so hard to find! why didn't they just say it was at the old Festival Bay Mall?". Which make me twinge inside, because I see the billboards on my way into work. No Address, No exit off I-4 mentioned, etc.....Not everyone has a smart phone to try to decipher what Artegon is! Some new billboards at least it mentions being at the old festival bay mall, so keeping fingers crossed that this aspect improves.
Another aspect, those artists that leave early are breaking a contract, and management is talking about suing them for the electricity fees that they are leaving unpaid by not being here. Which is going to make future artists more leery about signing up.
So my take on Artegon? It is ok for me. Gets me out of the house, I do the same work here that I would do at home, plus I can sell. I am hoping that traffic picks up, but not counting on it at the moment. My biggest fear is that the first six month contracts expire in May, and that this place will be a ghost town then.
Would I recommend getting a space to anyone? No. I would wait until June to see what kind of vendor retention there is, and what kind of shops they are. If you are seriously thinking about it, check back on a monthly basis to see what the place is like, and make sure that you can survive without a sale, and can do your work when you are here.
