Posted by don crozier on September 29, 2009 at 11:00am
So that is what my wife and I said to each other when we walked through The Meadows, a one year old development in Lake St Louis, Missouri. The Meadows at Lake St Louis is a high end "lifestyle center" as they call it. True, it is a shopping mall, but "mall" really doesn't do the place justice. Located about 25 miles from the St Louis suburbs and about 50 miles from the city, Lake St Louis has been an upscale place to live since the 60's and it has held up well over the years. This year, it won an award from Money Magazine as number 9 in their Top 10 Best Places to Live. Easily the most affluent area in St Charles County, it is located at the center of the recent housing boom and the highest growth area in the St Louis region. In April 2007, construction began on The Meadows at Lake St Louis. The Meadows is owned and managed by Davis Street Land Company in Chicago who specialize in high end retail outlets. http://www.themeadowsatlsl.com/ The Meadows opened to much fanfare at just about the worst possible time, August 2008. While I'm sure they've been hurt by the recession, new stores continue to open at about one every other month or so and construction is proceeding on another anchor, Von Maur, set to open in 2010. Foot traffic is decent, but I suspect that most merchants besides the restaurants aren't making a whole lot of money just yet. As far as I can tell, the housing market in the county, while not great, has not tanked either. The architecture and design of the Meadows makes the venue so attractive. The stores are all laid out in four quadrants around a lushly landscaped central courtyard which was just begging for little white tents.
The space is very classy and elegant, but it is not huge, with room for only about 28 tents or so. With no other art fair within 20 miles, I knew that someone would have an art fair there someday and I wanted to be a part of it. I approached Bridget Geiss, the Marketing Director, in the Spring of this year with my idea for an art fair and she was very receptive. I emphasized that this would be a quality show, in keeping with the Meadows' target demographic. We both agreed that if the show was a success, there would be room to grow by utilizing some of the rest of the property. We settled on the last weekend in September as the date. This fell towards the end of the Autumn St Louis shows, with Queeny Park on Labor Day weekend, the St Louis Art Fair in Clayton on the 2nd weekend, and Mosaics in St Charles on the 3rd weekend. The Shaw Art Fair is the first weekend in October, and even it can be risky on the weather, so we sure didn't want to go any later. How did we do? Stay tuned! Don
2011 was the final year for Art Fair on the Meadows. The show never did quite hit its stride, although most artists did make money there. Now, there is a Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, with some crafts booths. I intend to visit some time but never have yet.
The initial budget for the show had three line items:
$2,000 publicity
$750 insurance
$400 security
$3,150 total
which figured out to a booth fee of $125 for 25 artists. An application fee of $10 would help defray any additional expenses. I knew it would be tough to put a viable first-time show together in 5 months, but by keeping booth fees low and doing the jurying informally with my artist wife and several artist friends, I felt we could put on a good event. We met with several local non-profit arts groups and offered them a free booth to garner local publicity and support. The St Charles County Arts Council jumped on board immediately and the Lake St Louis Art Association shortly thereafter. Connie Mettler also offered me her assistance and her sage advice. Connie recommended K&K Insurance and we were able to get coverage through their Short Term Special Event program for $575, so that helped the budget. http://www.kandkinsurance.com/
Press releases were written, listings were made on local online calendars, and the Call-For-Artists went out in July. Our good friend and graphic designer Ellen Klamon did the artwork for free. http://ellenklamon.com/
The show's webpage used my wife's domain to save a few bucks and I did the page myself to save a lot of bucks. http://strandedglass.com/meadows.htm
It took about a month to build up to 18 artists. I really thought we would be able to hit the target of 25, but I felt good about who we had. Great quality and a really nice mix of mediums, and not too heavy on jewelry either. We had a nice buzz in the community too about the show. The people at the Meadows were excited as were the people that I met with in the community.
And then, the cancellations began.... In my four years of being involved with managing shows, it seems the norm to me to get a couple of cancellations out of 50 or so artists. Last year, when I was counting on one cancellation (kind of like overbooking a flight), we had zero out of 52 cancel. Two weeks before the show, 4 out of 18 canceled. A variety of reasons and all were valid, we know most of the artists personally. We did pick up one more artist from St Louis and his medium was one we didn't have, so that worked out nicely.
Setup was on Friday and the show hours were 10-6 on Saturday and noon to 4 on Sunday. The forecast of 40% scattered showers on Saturday worsened to 60% scattered thunderstorms. At least Sunday still looked good. I thought we would be setting up in the rain, but it was actually a pretty nice day. Load in wasn't too bad, decent access but you had to cart about a half block or so. With more than 25 artists, it would have become a problem but at 15, things went smoothly. I picked up local business licenses (another surprise I learned in early September, but the City Clerk's office was very accommodating) and waited for the building inspector to arrive at 3:30. He did his walk through and gave us the go-ahead.
Saturday started with rain. People did come out, but we lost a good two hours before the rain ended and the skies began to brighten. The jewelry artists seemed to have the most activity during and after the rain. Things really began to pick up around 1:00 or so. Nice steady crowd, many of them spending money, but still a lot of lookers going around empty handed. Then the wind began to pick up and it got a little scary when the sky began to darken. Although it was over in less than a half hour, the crowd never did recover from the second wave of rain and storms.
Sunday made up for Saturday. Beautiful weather, slightly breezy, but nothing that we weren't prepared for after Saturday. The St Charles Symphony had been scheduled for Saturday, but they canceled and played on Sunday afternoon, so that ended the weekend on a high note.
So how did we do? We had at least 3 artists who sold more than $1000, a few who didn't make expenses, and I think the rest sold between $300 and $700. I'm guessing attendance was around 500 total for the weekend. As it turns out, the space looked great with 15 artists. At most, we could have held 5 more booths without it looking crowded.
Final Budget:
$1050 publicity (mostly spent on postcards and postage for artists' mailing lists)
$575 insurance
$300 security (Saturday night)
$100 artist coffee & breakfast & misc
$2025 total expenses
$1965 total income
So we lost a few bucks on the event, but we ended up with a great first time show and something to build upon for next year. Thanks to my wife Gail and the wonderful and talented artists who took a chance on a first time show. The folks at the city of Lake St Louis were a pleasure to work with. Everyone I dealt with at the Meadows was a class act, from the maintenance team to the management.
Comments
2011 was the final year for Art Fair on the Meadows. The show never did quite hit its stride, although most artists did make money there. Now, there is a Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, with some crafts booths. I intend to visit some time but never have yet.
Will there be an art fair on the Meadows this year?
http://artfaironthemeadows.com/
$2,000 publicity
$750 insurance
$400 security
$3,150 total
which figured out to a booth fee of $125 for 25 artists. An application fee of $10 would help defray any additional expenses. I knew it would be tough to put a viable first-time show together in 5 months, but by keeping booth fees low and doing the jurying informally with my artist wife and several artist friends, I felt we could put on a good event. We met with several local non-profit arts groups and offered them a free booth to garner local publicity and support. The St Charles County Arts Council jumped on board immediately and the Lake St Louis Art Association shortly thereafter. Connie Mettler also offered me her assistance and her sage advice. Connie recommended K&K Insurance and we were able to get coverage through their Short Term Special Event program for $575, so that helped the budget.
http://www.kandkinsurance.com/
Press releases were written, listings were made on local online calendars, and the Call-For-Artists went out in July. Our good friend and graphic designer Ellen Klamon did the artwork for free.
http://ellenklamon.com/
The show's webpage used my wife's domain to save a few bucks and I did the page myself to save a lot of bucks.
http://strandedglass.com/meadows.htm
It took about a month to build up to 18 artists. I really thought we would be able to hit the target of 25, but I felt good about who we had. Great quality and a really nice mix of mediums, and not too heavy on jewelry either. We had a nice buzz in the community too about the show. The people at the Meadows were excited as were the people that I met with in the community.
And then, the cancellations began.... In my four years of being involved with managing shows, it seems the norm to me to get a couple of cancellations out of 50 or so artists. Last year, when I was counting on one cancellation (kind of like overbooking a flight), we had zero out of 52 cancel. Two weeks before the show, 4 out of 18 canceled. A variety of reasons and all were valid, we know most of the artists personally. We did pick up one more artist from St Louis and his medium was one we didn't have, so that worked out nicely.
Setup was on Friday and the show hours were 10-6 on Saturday and noon to 4 on Sunday. The forecast of 40% scattered showers on Saturday worsened to 60% scattered thunderstorms. At least Sunday still looked good. I thought we would be setting up in the rain, but it was actually a pretty nice day. Load in wasn't too bad, decent access but you had to cart about a half block or so. With more than 25 artists, it would have become a problem but at 15, things went smoothly. I picked up local business licenses (another surprise I learned in early September, but the City Clerk's office was very accommodating) and waited for the building inspector to arrive at 3:30. He did his walk through and gave us the go-ahead.
Saturday started with rain. People did come out, but we lost a good two hours before the rain ended and the skies began to brighten. The jewelry artists seemed to have the most activity during and after the rain. Things really began to pick up around 1:00 or so. Nice steady crowd, many of them spending money, but still a lot of lookers going around empty handed. Then the wind began to pick up and it got a little scary when the sky began to darken. Although it was over in less than a half hour, the crowd never did recover from the second wave of rain and storms.
Sunday made up for Saturday. Beautiful weather, slightly breezy, but nothing that we weren't prepared for after Saturday. The St Charles Symphony had been scheduled for Saturday, but they canceled and played on Sunday afternoon, so that ended the weekend on a high note.
So how did we do? We had at least 3 artists who sold more than $1000, a few who didn't make expenses, and I think the rest sold between $300 and $700. I'm guessing attendance was around 500 total for the weekend. As it turns out, the space looked great with 15 artists. At most, we could have held 5 more booths without it looking crowded.
Final Budget:
$1050 publicity (mostly spent on postcards and postage for artists' mailing lists)
$575 insurance
$300 security (Saturday night)
$100 artist coffee & breakfast & misc
$2025 total expenses
$1965 total income
So we lost a few bucks on the event, but we ended up with a great first time show and something to build upon for next year. Thanks to my wife Gail and the wonderful and talented artists who took a chance on a first time show. The folks at the city of Lake St Louis were a pleasure to work with. Everyone I dealt with at the Meadows was a class act, from the maintenance team to the management.