Artist friends gave us very vocal, very mixed, reports. Yes, there were huge crowds. Yes, it was a buying crowd, if you had the "right" merchandise. The 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily sales hours were brutal. Some artists said they hated it, but went back because their sales were so good. Some said they nearly ran out of merchandise. Others refused to ever go again. Some complained about the sap "dripping from trees." Some said it was just too much trouble and hassle to ever take part in again.
So, with a booth fee and "sanitation fee" adding up to $325 for the three days, we thought we would try it out for ourselves. The first inkling we had about how widespread the impact of the event was, was when we tried to make a motel reservation near Warrens in March (nearly 6 months before the event!) The closest we could find a motel in was in Eau Claire - 75 miles away! Everything else was booked up! We were told to try again closer to the event - maybe some reservations would be canceled and openings would be available. Luckily, closer to the event we were able to find a motel only 30 miles away. It was a 35 minute drive on an interstate highway.
Thursday was a set-up day. It had rained very hard the night before and caused severe flooding in the entire area.The grass was soaked, the dirt roads were mud. The rain turned to a mist, while we set up our tent. We were happy we brought along an indoor/outdoor carpet or the inside of the booth would've been a "slip-n-slide" because we had to set up on a slight incline. It appeared that we, and a whole bunch of other tents, were next to a muddy alley-way next to a huge number of bright orange port-o-potties.
When we left our tent set-up to get to our motel, we saw the rest of the town. Every inch of space had tents, food tents, etc. along and in the roadways. It was huge! The parking lots were huge! We were glad to get out of town.
The next morning we forced ourselves to get up at 4 a.m. to get to out to the tent by 5:30 a.m. to get ready to open at 7 a.m. It was chilly and misty out. We thought that we wouldn't have customers in that weather, but they came out in droves. We were already making sales before 8 a.m. Most of Friday's sales were cash sales, which showed us that the people came prepared to do serious shopping. Many knew that we were "newcomers" to the event. The weather continued to be brutal all day - cold, windy, wet . The entire grounds cheered when the sun came out for a few moments. Saturday was cold, but dry. Sunday was cold and sunny. (Sunday morning it was 38 degrees at 7 am.) Sales were best Friday, less on Saturday and even less on Sunday when there was a big parade.
The area we were in had about 150-250 artist tents and I never got to see them all. (The grounds were terrible for my wheelchair - tree roots, gravel, hilly bumpy terrain - and I already broke a wheel two weeks ago in Schaumburg..) My husband and daughter said that they saw more crafts than art, and the artists were all complaining about the weather and sales... Of course everyone we talked to who had been there for six - eight - ten - fifteen years said that sales were declining every year. The old complaint about how it "used to be better". We never got a chance to see the other areas with artists. They were all over the place.
I wish that Cranfest had a listing of the artists who were there and what their art was. That way we'd have a better picture of the type of stuff that was there. Some of our aisle neighbors that I could see were a dulcimer musician selling CD's (he'd been there 9 years), two metal garden art collage artists (this was their first year there, and they left early because their farm's water supply was contaminated from the flooding), a potter selling his sister's dip mixes and his pottery dip bowls, a lady who was selling framed pressed flower collages, a stained glass artist, a glove and hat artist, country wooden yard art - snowmen, and a mixed media artist. But I really could not see that much...
Of course there were tons of food vendors selling everything you could think of, from traditional "fair food" (corn dogs, corn on the cob, brats, burgers etc.) and ethnic specialties (Jamaican, Cajun) to deep fried everything, including cranberries on a stick. There was a huge farmers market and a resellers area. Lots and lots of competition for the visitor's dollar.
Set up and take-down was pretty good for us, but we have no idea what the other areas were like. After we packed up Sunday, we were so tired we just couldn't make the trip home safely, so we opted for another night in the motel. We all slept 12 straight hours!
Would we go again? Most likely not. With 4 nights of hotel expenses, and a 4 hour drive home, and sales that were about the same as a pretty good two-day "art" show, the numbers just don't work. If sales had been much better we might have reconsidered.
We'd be interested in other artists experiences there. Was our "take" on this show on-target or off-base?
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Comments
My 'roadies' felt the wear too, even being healthy. We all slept for 12 hours as soon as we found a good inexpensive hotel out of the danger zone.
Warrens definitely draws the crowds, but they also have an abundance of vendors... and mixing buy & sell, flea market, art and craft also attracts a very diverse crowd (they try to segment the vendors, but we were in a "transitional" area where buy & sell were interspersed among art and craft.
The event is so large, most people who attend only make it to a fraction of the booths. It really is THAT BIG.
Thanks for the thorough report... and I'm sure we'll be crossing paths soon.