This was the second time I've done this show. Last year was okay, sales were a bit low, but there was still money left over after paying for booth fee, lodging and meals, gas and so on. It had nice crowds, and the show maker was selling a group of Alaska images to a family that went there and didn't know their camera wasn't working. This was a critical factor I overlooked when doing the show this year.
I got in off the wait list this year and was happy to do the show. It's laid out well, easy set up with unloading in front of the booth space, and has a good distribution of media. The organizer is a nice guy who appears to work his butt off.
I can't say the Friday afternoon and evening hours are worthwhile doing as nothing seemed to be selling and I didn't see much of anything being carried around. What started sounding an alarm bell was the low crowd turnout on Friday night. Most artists reported almost nothing on Friday night sales last year, but the crowds were good sized back then.
Saturday rolled around and the crowds were sparse the entire day which ran from noon to 10:00 PM. The night crowd wasn't nearly as heavy as the previous year. I sold very little on Saturday, and others around me were in the same boat. There were also few returning artists from the previous year. Sunday picked up a bit, but all it did was get the booth fee back and enough extra to pay for one night's hotel fee. I wound up losing about $300 doing the show.
The family that made the large purchase last year is what I should have factored out of the equation to return. Counting on a single big sale is overly optimistic, and a mistake I don't plan to do again. My sales were about the same minus the one big sale from last year. As much as the organizer is a genuinely nice guy and the setting is nice, if the crowds can't be delivered it would be foolish to return. The potter next to me managed to make a small profit selling mostly $13 mugs and no large pieces, and won't be returning. A jeweler across from us was doing miserably, and likewise won't return. Another photographer was next to me, luckily there was no similarity at all between our work, and he was counting the pennies to get his investment back. He won't return either.
There were other shows going on that weekend and it was a home game Saturday for Ohio State on Saturday, but the other two days were still problematic. I won't be back to the show.
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