I havn't been to my first art festival/fair yet as an artist--that is coming up at the end of May. So when I went to the OKC festival tonight I was looking at everything from a different viewpoint than I ever had before. I never paid attention before to how people lit their work, or whether they had a rug of some kind in their tent, or what color their walls were, or if they have a sign what does it look like.
It's my understanding that OKC festival is a little different in that they provide the artists with walls and the tent, and they aren't supposed to sell reproductions out of their booths.
Anyway this is a break down of my newbie observations from a not-an-artist-there point of view:
-A lot of people still had their own propanels or other walls to add to their booth space.
-One booth had red fabric on their walls and it stood out and caught a lot of people's attention/caused them to stop and look at their paintings (which were complimented well by the color in my opinion)
-There were a lot of the same artists there that I see every year, and a some amount of them had the same stuff they had last year.
-Most people framed their paintings.
-Jewelers all had large nice photos of their jewelry hanging on their walls so you could see from a distance what their stuff looked like
-I overheard a couple artists mentioning having sold quite a bit already. And I saw a couple red dots on paintings (never knew what that meant before)
-There were a lot of very brightly colored landscape paintings.
-A lot of people had Oklahoma-themed art. I wonder if that sells better?
-The print tent was emptier than I've ever seen it before. I asked one of the print tent volunteers about it and she said "not a lot of artists gave us prints this year" and "I think a lot of them are selling them in their booths"
Comments
I had already been thinking about going to check the fair out again...that's a nice thing about it being 6 days, people can come more than once. by the weekend though its usually super crowded and some good stuff has been sold so I enjoy going on the first night. If I do go again I'll stop by your booth for a chat--I hope your selling well today even though its rainy!
This is my first time doing the OKC festival and you're right - the setup is a bit different. The Artist Market tent has pretty strict guidelines in terms of inventory sheets, minimum quantities, and display/labeling requirements. A lot of the artists I've spoken to so far are either traveling great distances or using this as a filler show so meeting those requirements can be tough. I had a hard time pulling together my prints, and I reaaly hope I sell enough to make it worth my while to participate. I also donated 3 small originals for the Young at Art tent for kids - don't know how that's going yet.
As for the Oklahoma-themed art - yes, it's there, but if you do any shows in Colorado you'll see lots of Colorado-themed art. I've had several folks walk into my booth and say, "Oh, lots of Oklahoma things!" but not one of my photos was was shot in the Sooner state - they're all Colorado. The painter next to me is selling his local cityscapes and people seem to love them. Last year he brought his nudes but they caused a bit of a stir so he left them at home this time.
I did see lots framed work go by, but plenty of folks are displaying frames and offering unframed work as well.
Sales were good yesterday. I'm near a sales booth and saw lots of tickets go by. Plus yesterday we opened 4 hours early for the patrons to buy, so there were plenty of sales from that. I was told by a veteran that today will be the slowest, and the weekend is usually packed.
If you come back by the show, stop by my booth for a chat. I'm in 28B near the red sales tent.
I'll try to promptly post a review of the show next week.