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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

      Last weekend (June 2-3) I did Farmington's Art on the Grand for the first time. It was a lovely town and seemed like it would be a lovely art fair. They had live music…nice live music, artsy live music. Classical in the morning, folksy in the afternoon, and jazzy in the evening. That was perfect…it was backdrop music and was the perfect volume to enjoy and still be able to talk to your customer. The crowd was nice, lots of people despite the threat of rain. Not a lot of bags going by though. The booths around me did not seem to be doing a ton of business but no one complained of not making booth rent. Except me. I did not do very well, but I have a bit of a niche market when it comes to my art. Some places I do really well….others..not so much. I'm still learning where I fit. I might do this one again though…It was a pleasant art fair and I want to see what it would be like without the threat of rain hanging over head.

    The rain threatened us all weekend. The forecaster's called for it in every newscast on every channel. The weather channel app on my iPhone said rain for every hour all weekend long. But the radar app on my iPhone showed it all above us,which was good, but I'm not so sure the other reports didn't keep away potential art fair goers though.      

     Saturday and Sunday both were bright, mild temps, and sunny (with the exception of a brief shower Sat. at 5pm) but it was windy……REALLY windy. I'm not good at guesstimating but the artist next to me said probably the gust were between 15-30 mph or more. My little  EZ-up was shaking. But I've got a Flourish stabar for my mesh walls and that seemed to help a lot. Others around me were not so lucky. We saw an entire jeweler's booth moved piece  by piece down the road. We thought they we're packing up but it turns out they were trying to find a spot more sheltered from the wind.

     Two tents over they had an EZ-up with the kind of weights that you slide the tent feet into…...they weren't fairing so well. By mid morning Saturday they had someone fetch them those large round 15-20lb weights from someone's weight lifting gear. By the afternoon they had also added 3gallon jugs of water. On Sunday they were just sitting, one on each of the front legs of the tent, and hanging on to it….live weights if you will. 

     The worst was the ceramics artist kitty-corner from me. She had a trim line tent. It weathered the wind's buffeting well except for the back tent wall was blowing in and out buffeting her shelving units. Early Saturday it knocked a piece off the shelf.  The Artist next to me ran over to catch the other couple of pieces he saw rolling around that looked like they were next. She moved her shelves inward and away from the walls in an attempt to keep them safe from the flapping walls.

It seemed to do the trick….for awhile.

     An hour before close on Saturday the sky really began to darken. And the wind….blowing strong all day…increased it's force. As the rain started we got a HUGE gust of wind come through, like 50 mph. I heard a horrible sickening crashing sound. I looked across to see the ceramic artist's entire back shelf pitched forward on to the ground. People were running in to help steady her tent. Which was good because seconds later a second HUGE gust ripped through and her two other shelves would have gone the same way if people hadn't been there to catch them.

      My EZ up with it's mesh walls swayed about a bit but it held up. The framed pieces I had hanging on them buoyed out away from the panels with the winds a bit  but stayed in place. They were double hooked and I think that helped.  I didn't have to let my sidewalls down until the rain came through so the mesh walls let the wind pass right through. And the stabar unit really helped the rest of the tent remain stable and weather the winds.

     Her Trimline had held up but her sides were just buffeted and billowed in that wind.  In the end that's what did all the damage, those billowy side walls. She lost about 75% of her stock. She had a show to do in two weeks time and her full compliment of stock was on those shelves. And she was not insured. So she lost her stock, she lost her ability to do the next show and thus any booth/jury fee's she'd paid out for this show as well as the next one.  Not to mention hotel, gas, food, etc…if she wasn't close to home.

    It really made me think. I don't have insurance either. Can't really afford it. If my stuff came crashing down in those winds I would have only to replace frames. Insurance might cover that but insurance can't replace my work.  And if my work got wet I'd be screwed….I don't have replacement art sitting at home. Oh, I've got one or two "hole-fillers" for when I make sales but that wouldn't be enough if I lost stock like she did. And I've prepaid for a lot of shows for this year already. About one every two weeks….that's not a lot of time if I had to replace work. I have a full-to-part time job and other obligations besides my art. I'm already burning both ends against the middle. 

    My goal for this year was to swing my art out of the niche market it's in and be a little more salable to the average art buyer. But now I think I've got to readjust that goal and make sure that having a backup of artwork is one of my priorities as well.  I'll look into insurance. I might buy a better tent. But I definitely need to have "backup" art at home.  I can always get a tent in time to do my next art fair….but I won't be able to do that art fair if I don't have back up art work. Mother Nature can only make a fool out of me if I let her.