This is my first time posting pictures to a blog. I’ve heard that it’s difficult to relate to individual pictures because they get sorted differently. Here I’ve added a text time stamp to identify each.
SHOW: Louisville at the Summit (by Howard Alan Events).
Dates: May 15-16
Location: The Summit ( a shopping mall in North East Louisville)
The area was surrounded by some very nice neighborhoods and looked like it had the potential to be a good opportunity. For several days before the show the weather forecast called for Thunderstorms on Sunday. Saturday was suppose to be good but Sunday looked like disaster. As Saturday arrived, the immediate weather forecast called for scattered thunderstorms in the area (even on Saturday afternoon) and then even more so on Sunday. We all kind of figured that we had to make our sales on Saturday because Sunday could be zero.
The weather happened to be good all day Saturday. As we watched the pending storms on an artist computers and others iPhone, it appeared all of the wet weather just missed us a few miles to the south. Sunday was not bad weather wise. It just drizzled almost all day long, sometimes not even enough for an umbrella.
Load in was great as we could park either next to our tent or within 30+ feet in the parking lot. Most artists were in the road in front of the mall stores. A few of us were on the store side of the road on the sidewalk. I was in a location where I only had 10’0” of depth between the edge of the curb and the 2’ high brick planter at the rear. Consequently there was NO storage for me. And even though there was 10’ clearance on the ground, there was a tree in the rear planter that took up about 18 inches of my space at the top of my tent. So I had to tie off my tent to the tree and winch it backwards into the tree limbs to allow me to sit on the curb. But all was well, because I had a corner booth with no one within about 50 feet of my side. So anyone could see my items from far away.
Parking was at the other side of the stores in the rear, delivery parking lot. For me, that meant a 300+ yard walk each way to go to my vehicle. One artist had a motorized scooter which was quite convenient for him. So working alone, with no booth sitters, I was not able to go to my vehicle except by vacating my tent for an extended period of time.
A few artists that I spoke to said they did well at this show last year. However the big disappointment this time was the lack of attendance. On Saturday there didn’t seem to be any more people present that you would expect to have gone to the mall anyway. On Sunday I saw more artists than people all day. I’ve attached pictures to show the lack of attendance. With time stamps on each. The parking lot photo is for customer parking right behind the artists booths. As you can see, no one was there, even an hour after the show started.
I’ve done several Howard Alan shows this year and so far have been impressed with the attendance that he is able to get at his shows (weather permitting). One artist talk to the promoter who claimed to have spent more on advertising this year than last year. Unfortunately it was to no avail.
I traveled 8 hours from home and had lodging expenses. Still I made expenses (barely). I know several others that made expenses, but not much more. Two jewelers that I know seemed to do fairly well. I also spoke to a couple of artists that zeroed (at least through midday Sunday).
My biggest sale was Sunday, to a be-backer from Saturday. And on top of that, it was an 8 year old boy. On Saturday he recognized one of my images and we talked a while. I told him the story behind it and he said he would like to have it. It was $300. I asked him how much money he had. He said “I have $60”. I joked with him and told him that he needed to go tell his parents he needed more money. Never expected to see him again. Then Sunday, he came running back (50 yards ahead of his parents) who let him purchase the canvas print. I told his parents that I wanted to hire him for “VP of Sales”.
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