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  Kathleen V. Smith June 24, 2015 at 3:35pm

  Valerie, Not everyone has the luxury like we Jewelers to take everything home, & really if people HAVE to at certain shows, then WHY do these shows?!!  NO, this is shameful & I hate to see this happening to my fellow Artists!  If the thieves SEE Security walking around like they SHOULD BE, they'll be much less likely to steal or hang out destroying things!!!   After "doing the math too" for 300 Artists, there should be ALOT MORE Security Guards to cover this area & GOOD Security~not just wimps trying to keep out of the rain! Thank You Amy Renee for doing the math as well, & I am so sorry for your loss & mess they must have made!  Good luck to you at your next shows this summer.
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  Valerie Thomas June 24, 2015 at 11:07am

  One more comment.  We never used to take anything out of our booth.  We'd lock it in cabinets (which could be easily broken into). But, with leaner economic times, we started to have lots of theft during show hours.  At that point i put everything under glass and I started thinking about not only the money invested, but most important the number of hours invested.  Rather than to wait for something to happen, this is when we made the decision to remove anything of value at night.
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  Valerie Thomas June 24, 2015 at 10:59am

  We always remove all pieces and anything of value from our booth.  Thieves are smart and opportunistic.  Regardless of how good the security is...if the show is outdoors, it would be very easy to get in and steal anything from any booth.  There are many homes broken into and the thieves simply grab anything they can within a few minutes even with an alarm system in place.  A zippered artist booth full of goodies that could be resold would be a much easier target...I am surprised this is the only incident.  
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  AmyRenee Cornelius June 24, 2015 at 9:55am

  Thank you for your words Kathleen!! I totally agree!! To blame the victims that it was there fault that their bike was stolen, as in Oscar statement, is the stupid part. 

  So I did some math. 300 booths x $600 for fees = $180,000.  WHAT?? And to have only two guards from close to open to which did not do their job??? Wonder what  their cost was to have them...... 
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  Christina L. Towell June 24, 2015 at 9:09am

  Shocking and demoralizing...so sorry to hear about this.
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  Kathleen V. Smith June 24, 2015 at 1:15am

  2 security guards & in ONE place....this is pathetic!  I realize that promoters cannot be responsible for loss of items (alot of Artists take Jewelry ect. home), but they should do everything they can to prevent loss.  A 4' fence & 2 security guards, finding them in ONE place, & the booth fee is $595.00~does NOT sound real Artist-Friendly to me!  I am sorry about anyones' loss, as only we know the time involved in creating our Art. By the way, for them to haul out something as large as a BIKE, I would not call this stupid as much as "very confident thieves" as they obviously didn't see any guards in sight anywhere.  
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  Oscar Matos Linares June 22, 2015 at 11:53pm

  Well living your bike in tent at any show is very stupid. 
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  Jacki Bilsborrow June 22, 2015 at 10:54pm

  Boy, I hate to hear of things like this. 
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  AmyRenee Cornelius June 22, 2015 at 12:11pm

  Looks like you beat me to the punch Connie. I was just going to post my Gold Coast experiance. And I was one of the people that had were violated by the jerks. Now the only thing they took was about $4 in coins but not after trashing and throwing everything out of my bins to search. This really pissed me off. I always take my inventory with me and lift up my tablecloths to show I have nothing to take or hiding anything. So when they opened up my all boxes that I give with purchase, and throw them, was not necessary. And to think I was mor worried about the weather that occurred over night. FYI - My neighbor was the fellow in the news clip that had the bike stolen.
  Now here is what happen that was not reported. The security guards, which were only two for the show, were sitting under a tent to keep dry as a storm was coming through around 8 pm instead of walking around doing their job. This park is big and had 300 tents and they had a 4ft fence put up for the event. But the fence is easily jumped. So because of this, many people had to deal with unfortunate event.
  The good thing is that my neighbor had a great show with his 2-d prints of Chicago that had a 1920's feel. Very beautiful work. Also there was a decent crowd but I did not fair as well. I had a 4ft a muddy grass in front of my booth that most did not want to deal with so they kept going. So with all of what happened, this was the worst show I have ever done. But the last person in my booth at 6 pm was a shop owner asking about having my items in her store so that is the silver lining on this dark cloud. And on a funny note, my neighbor that had the bike stolen, he actually may be a very distant cousin. LoL they put us besides one another as our names are Cornelius and thought we were married.
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  Connie Mettler June 22, 2015 at 11:29am

  hmmm... there is a video in that link that is supposed to be embedded, which doesn't seem to be appearing here. Some days my tech skills are severely limited.