There have been a lot of blog posts singing the praises of the Winter Park Art Fair. I’ll add mine to the chorus. This is a great show! For me, its the best show in Florida. Of course, that’s not saying much when you look at my dismal sales for the first five shows in my Florida tour. I averaged around $1100 each for the first five (Artfest, Coconut Grove, Naples National, Las Olas and Bonita Springs). For Winter Park I grossed a little more than $4700. A good show for me.
This is a rare breed of art fair... one which residents support wholeheartedly. They look forward to it every year. They save up their art buying for the Winter Park Art Fair. I know of a few more shows that have that special vibe, Krasl in St. Joe Michigan and DesMoines Iowa show, to name two of my favorites. They are shows that the residents are proud of.
When I checked in on Thursday afternoon, I was greeted by Carole Moreland, a board member, and one of the show organizers. She recognized my name as the poor bloke who has been blogging about his dismal Florida season. She wished me a good show and assured me that the committee studies our blog posts and makes notes about how they can make their art fair better in the future. That made me think about the conversations I had with Barry Witt at the Bonita Art Fair and Howard Alan at Las Olas. Our blog posts help give guidance to other artists considering entering these shows and directly affect the number of artists who apply to these shows. The organizers like positive reviews and they like to see big sales numbers for their shows. Art Fair Insiders has more power and influence than I had originally thought. But, lets see if this influence eventually manifests itself in improvements to the art fair circuit.
Anyway, back to Winter Park. Big prize money (although I didn’t win any), fantastic lineup of artist, an enthusiastic buying public and great weather all made for a premier art fair. The only negatives I could come up with were the difficult load in and load out... lots of dollying, and some questionable locations for some of the booths (especially the ones on wood chip paths). But its a show I would be delighted to get into again next year.
One more show for me in Florida, Naples Downtown. Then, its back to Saugatuck, Michigan. See you in the Spring, Nels.
Comments
Well done, John! Sometimes it just takes one good show to "break the ice." Hope the rest of the year follows along!
Well, of course, I am happy to hear of more success at this show than the prior ones, John. Good for you.
In addition, I am really surprised at the impact this site and its bloggers has on the "industry." I look at the site and see maybe 20-30 people reading... and about 2% of them commenting ... but this is helpful information. If everyone just keeps the data coming it will impact our shows. Thanks for this and greetings to Carole!
John, so glad you had a good show in the sales stakes!
John, I am so happy that you had a great show! I think we were all pulling for you.
Congratulations John! I thought this would be the Florida show for you! You had a better Winter Park than I did, but I still did very good for me. The reason why it was my slowest Winter Park Spring show ever, was probably because I was down one of those wood chip paths. I was coughing wood chip dust all weekend. I'm not going to complain too much, because I was thrilled to get in off the waitlist the day prior to the show. This show does do a lot of things right and keeps itself from becoming a carnival like event that the Grove has become. Best of luck to you in your shows back up north!
Congratulations, John! You deserve the success, and I hope all your Fla. shows are like that in the future.