Okay
Last year before I did Laumeier the area hit by flood and tornado a month before the show. Let said the crowd was very low according to another artist. I asking how you believe that will affect the upcoming shows in the area. I know is Texas and is bond to happen but I wont anyone going through that pain. Why can they just stay in area that wont hurt anyone.
Show Organizer/Promoter: Downtown Tempe Foundation, Inc., http://tempefestivalofthearts.com
Booth Fee: $35 Jury Fee on Zapp, $535 Booth Fee, $75 of the booth fee pre-pays the Tempe Business License and taxes, an Arizona License euphuistically referred to as the Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT)/License is also required. I checked on the City of Tempe Business web site and a special events license is only $25 which suggests that the other $50 is pre-collected taxes! If your sales don't meet or exceed that amount will they refund the difference? Inquiring minds want to know and I intend to check into that!
Logistics: Artists are not allowed into the festival area until 9 pm on Thursday the night before, although you can load-in early in the morning on Friday, the first day of the show. The festival does a really good job of organizing times for different "zones" to load-in. They are staggered on a half-hour basis and they make sure east-west and north-south artists go in the right direction on the street. Mill AVenue, which runs N/S is more narrow and load-in/out seems to be a little tight. Even so by 11:30 pm we were ready to sleep after driving 7+ hours to get there. Given the day light hours are longer now there was still light when we loaded up Sunday night, not so in December!
Show Hours: The show runs from 10-6 Friday-Sunday. It could have easily closed an hour earlier on Sunday without any loss.
Amenities: Tempe festival does a nice job of offering water, coffee, hot chocolate, sweets, treats and other stuff for the artists at their hospitality booth. At check in on Thursday they had water and what was left of the cookies (I should'a been there earlier!) Friday was fairly warm and the temperature reached close to 90 on Saturday and they were running around in the golf carts making sure all the artists had plenty of water! They have always been very friendly and hospitable. Booth sitters were available if needed by calling a number on the daily info sheet and they even offered a service to help people carry heavy art to their vehicles.
Demographics: Unlike ALL of the other shows that I have done in Arizona this winter season this show actually had a wide cross-section of age groups! The winter show had a LOT of baby strollers whereas this show had all age groups reasonably represented. Who was buying? People with money to spend of course! That seemed to be more of the middle age bracket with the high end age group buying more popcorn and the low end age group inexpensive art reprints.
Food: I know that there were some food booths on one of the streets but I didn't make it there this go round. I saw some people eating chocolate covered bananas and apples along with boxes of Asian noodles as-well-as the usual lemonade and popcorn stands. Given that the show takes place in downtown Tempe there are LOTS of restaurants around. We went for the Fatburger one day and the philly cheese steak another day at one of the local establishments. Dinner was a variety of salads, hummus and pita at a mid-eastern style restaurant Friday night.
Reflections: The booth fee seems a might high given the return at this show. Statistics provided by the show reveal that sponsorship pays for 23% of the expenses of the overall show which saves artists $200 on their booth fee. Artists and other vendor fees pay for 63% of the show ($330,000 total show cost). I had heard from artists last year that their results at the spring show were much better than what they experienced at the December show which is why I thought I'd try it. The show proudly boasts: "The Tempe Festival of the Arts consistently ranks among the Top 200 art festivals in the nation by Sunshine Artist and has received the Pinnacle Award from the International Festival and Events Association. The spring and fall events each attract nearly 225,000 visitors to the Mill Avenue District over the course of a 3-day weekend." I don't dispute the number of visitors as the show was pretty crowded each midday but how does Sunshine Artist come up with their rankings? Even the jewelers weren't doing so hot at the show this go round!
The festival has a "featured artist" for each of their shows which is a nice aspect. I have no idea how the artist is chosen for that honor but they get a double wide booth in the middle of the show. I first saw this shows featured artist work at a Costco in the Denver area with a representative manning the display. Subsequently his booth has been seen in many (most) of the shows in the southwest that I have attended, again with a representative, but never, prior to this, have I seen him. In fact I didn't see him in his booth last Dec at this show! He was there for this show though. Okay, enough sniping.
As mentioned the crowds were fairly large, even Friday there was a good herd marching through the streets. I like the TV show "Walking Dead" and minus the rotting flesh, biting of throats and moaning it seemed like the crowd moved through the show in a manner similar to the herd of dead on the show. The weather was so hot on Friday and Saturday that the lemonade stands were doing a brisk business but the popcorn wasn't going as fast! He reported that his numbers were pretty far off. Very little buying was taking place on either of the first two days for anyone except the hat people. I didn't even see a lot of dogs wearing the dog hats like I usually do. We held out hope that with the cooler temperatures on Sunday the buyers would come out. Sunday was much cooler, pleasantly so, although much breezier. I was encouraged about sales when I made my first early in the day but it slowed through the rest of the day. My neighbor Rick and his wife Linda were selling their very clever wood work items on a more regular basis like they did at the Dec show but the jeweler next to them was lamenting the lack of buying enthusiasm for her wares even though they seemed well priced. The hat people had brisk action throughout the weekend with items under $40. On Sunday as well it seemed like the majority of people just breezed past the booths without much interest. Is that just my perception? Is it germane to a big show? At the smaller shows that I have been doing it seems most everyone looks at most every booth.
Did I mention Buy/Sell (aka B/S)? The show makes a strong point in their daily newsletter that should an artist feel that they suspect B/S they can make an anonymous call and the staff will investigate it. I didn't get a chance to walk the show this time but the hat people seemed suspicious to me. Somehow their wares just didn't seem to have that hand-made quality. Who am I to judge, I didn't make any calls to anyone though.
The show went till 6 pm and although the weather wasn't as much of a factor by that time, the crowds thinned considerably by 5. In my comments to the organizers I know I will suggest ending the show at 5 on Sunday for sure. They came, they talked with the artists but they didn't buy much! This is definitely a show where a variety of price points in your booth will help get sales. I did see some very large items with legs but that was the exception. I saw a variety of yard art go by and the guy that paints very bright and clever images on old windows seemed to do well. So it seemed that "fun" things did well.
Smoke. Forest fire smoke. And then the wind died down and all was good.
Several of our machines were were just upgraded and refurbished, so timing was perfect AND a sixth machine became available. YEA!
With a team of five, we loaded, lugged, pushed, pulled and dragged the gear into position. Up stairs and elevators, across the red carpet, and up more stairs! Three of the machines were relocated to take advantage of the fickle breeze.
Check the video for the results.
Cheers!
Bill Coleman
Denver, CO
I've been blogging about the seven Florida art fairs I participated in during February and March as part of a winter circuit by this artist from the Midwest. My goal was to establish a market for my art in Florida so I could count on some sales and profits during the winter months in the future. Unfortunately I was not able to reach that goal. I did some math and the numbers show that the only thing I accomplished was a pretty good tan. I would have been better off staying home.
Booth fees and application fees cost me $3600, Gas 1200, Booth improvements 350, Parking 150 and Hotels were 2500. Total expenses came to $7800 (not counting food and incidentals).
Total sales for the seven art fairs was $11,000 which gave me a gross profit of $3200. Not much for two months out of the studio, especially when the cost of materials and framing are taken into account.
Of the seven art fairs I participated in (Artfest Ft Myers, Naples National, Coconut Grove, Bonita Springs, Las Olas, Winter Park and Naples Downtown), the only one that was financially worthwhile for me was Winter Park where I grossed $4700 in sales. I averaged only about $1100 in sales at the other six events. Winter Park saved me from a total disaster.
Another thing that saved me was my sympathetic friends in Naples who put me up for much of the time I spent in Florida. Without them my hotel bills would have been much higher.
Many artists I ran into during my "circuit", did much better than I did. Many did about the same or worse. So, its hard for me to make a generalization, except to say that Florida is not my market. For others, that might not be the case. But some things are apparent to me. There are too many art fairs in Southern Florida. The market is saturated. there are not enough buyers for all the artists who naively flock to the sunshine state with dollar signs in their eyes (me included). And I can't blame the promoters and organizers. As long as the artists keep paying the application and booth fees, the promoters will keep launching new art fairs. After all, it's a business and its profitable for them.
For me, I'm still licking my wounds and trying to find the dollars in my dwindling bank account for Spring and Summer booth fees in the Midwest. As for my future in Florida? There's Winter Park, but it tough to travel all that way for one show. And there's no guarantee of getting into this worthwhile show two years in a row.
The hottest topic ever on this site continues to generate discussion at this link: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/winter-park-festival-artists-to-discuss-fraud
Encouraged by the conversation there we added a poll to the site to take the temperature of attitudes on this idea. Here are the results:
As I look at the choices on the poll I think it was pretty much written to skew to the negative. Perhaps the topic should have been: Do you think buy/sell is a serious issue and do you think it should be addressed?
What do you think?
I'm having a bit of a quandary that I could use some help with. Like a lot of art fair artisans, I have an Etsy shop that I like to sell my work in online. And I have slowly (VERY slowly) been accumulating the necessary tools and accessories to start participating in fairs and festivals. I bought a good solid tent, I have some display mechanisms for inside it, and I even bought an iPad so I could get Square cheaply, and thus be independent and swipe my credit cards on my own.
Over the years (yes, it's now been years I've been preparing for this endeavor) I've created my body of work and accumulated stock. I've also slowly whittled away at that same collection as I sold pieces on Etsy, so it's been an interesting challenge to create new items and make them available for sale and at the same time accumulate enough work to be a viable vendor at a street fair experience. I don't think I'll ever have enough, quite frankly.
But my quandary comes with how I categorize my work when I'm considering applying to different art fairs and festivals. My work is already difficult to define as it's what I consider "wearable art", not a category that most traditional art festivals consider a viable or legitimate mode of expression. At least in the sense that they're looking for art that is hangable on a wall or displayable on a stand--paintings, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and mixed media. It's when an art festival starts cracking that hard shell and starts "allowing" wearable art in the door that things suddenly seem to start to get "crafty" and less "arty". Suddenly you have vendors with mass produced items from China saying, "Our stuff is wearable art, too!" and things degenerate rapidly...
Now, I understand that this is wrapped up in the debate around the definitions of Art and Craft, and that we won't solve that here. But it seems to me that most traditional art festivals that require an online application process don't really want wearable art in their festivals. I can understand why--it's a lot easier to define "Fine Art" and recognize it when it's following a set of traditional parameters that have always been used before. Clothing and jewelry are very utilitarian, an aspect that muddies the waters when it comes to determining whether it's "art" or not. How does one determine whether a piece of clothing is artistic or not? Is it in the execution or process? The end result? Its uniqueness? Its materials?
I've struggled with this for a long while. I consider my pieces wearable art, but others would look at them as simple costume pieces, not necessarily worthy of consideration in a more upscale art festival or fair that requires jurying. Even though each piece is individually hand made and one-of-a-kind with no duplications, they might consider my pieces too "crafty" in comparison to the paintings and photography that is the vast majority of what is submitted. I have boldly trudged forward, refusing to acknowledge a philosophical difference and stubbornly insisting that my work is not craft as much as it is art of a wearable nature. But just because I believe it's so doesn't make it so in the eyes of festival organizers, nor jurors considering applications.
As a consequence, I've considered making my work more "sculptural" in nature by supplying display mechanisms for the home that (in essence) help ground my pieces more as small sculptures for looking at rather than actually wearing. This puts them more into a soft sculpture category (like stuffed fabric birds, for example), and still provides an option for the purchaser to actually wear the piece if they desire.
So my question is (finally, after all this setup and rambling) is there really a "stratification" in the art festival world that doesn't allow wearable art or jewelry? I've attended my local ArtWalk here in San Diego, and they don't accept wearable art entries. And conversely I've been to the Carlsbad Village Street Faire (claiming to be the largest single-day street fair in the nation and making the statement that they are not an Arts and Crafts fair), and they pretty much accept anyone. I don't think my items can sell at a come-one-and-all street fair--my pieces are too "high end".
Are there differences between the terms "Art Festival" and "Street Fair" even though so many events seem to blur the line? For example, my local neighborhood event, The North Park Festival of the Arts, requires a jury application, but there's little difference in the event's end result than that of the Carlsbad Street Faire except scale.
How on earth do I find the right kinds of festivals and fairs for my work? Should I be looking for applications that specifically say "Craft Fair"? "Fiber Art"? "Wearable Art"? Should I expand my personal artistic expression into garments that are even more artistic and less utilitarian in order to be considered more traditional? Essentially creating paintings that happen to be on clothing?
Or is it just plain jitters on my part or a lack of hubris that compels me to think that my stuff is somehow an exception to the rules, and I must realize that my work is simply more appropriate to niche fairs and festivals that don't necessarily require online applications? That the higher end fairs are simply not for my kind of work, and I must make due with selling over-priced pieces (in comparison to everyone else) at venues that aren't focused on the kind of work I do?
Bit of an identity crisis here. I'd love some advice from those that have been around for a while in this industry. Ultimately, I don't want to embarrass myself by setting my work up in a venue that isn't appropriate.
I know many of you here use Priceline to get hotel rooms. Have any of you used the Price chop on Priceline? A few days ago I booked a room in Nashville, TN. I spent a lot of time checking room reviews and I saw that many of the hotels were completely booked. After a good hour of trying the name your own price and failing to get a room, I did the Price chop.
After driving for 9 hours, and through several hard down pours, we finally pulled up to our hotel in Nashville. It was after midnight and we were so tired. The receptionist said she hadn't received any reservation in our name and they were booked solid! I was very unhappy!!! I produced the paper work that I printed off the computer showing her I did indeed have reservations. She told me that they had run out of rooms a day before we even placed that reservation. We were left to try to figure out what to do to get another room during a time when so many events were taking place and the hotels were full to capacity.
The receptionist started calling around for us (which I appreciated) and we had to take a room at a Best Western (I would call it a "tired" Western). For many years we were living under a super tight budget and we had to take crappy rooms because they were cheaper and we needed to save money. I have reached my limit for doing that and try to get a nice room that I don't have to worry how old and filthy the carpet is, or think about how long ago the bedspread was washed.
Has this happened to any of you? I thought Priceline guaranteed their rooms. This has now happened to us 2 times in Nashville. I might think it was the hotel's fault except I have experienced this with 2 different hotels in the same city. Have any of you contacted Priceline with a problem before? I will be calling them tomorrow and through the magic of the internet (Facebook, google+, Twitter, AFI) people will know about it if I am not compensated in some way. The social media is a great way to spread bad PR for companies if they fail to do what they advertise. It can also be used to show appreciation for good companies, as well.
I found this at the bottom of their opening page - With our Best Price Guarantee, you can be sure you're getting the lowest rate at top-notch hotels - even at the last minute.
What do you guys think?
September 15 & 16
Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota
Historic rivertown on the St. Croix River
10am-5pm
175 artists and craftspeople
Deadline: April 15 or till full
Award winning, well established show with quality art and craft.
This is an outdoor event that has the reputation of being an outstanding art fair. It is always held the 3rd weekend of September, the peak of our fall colors tourist season.
Marine on St. Croix is located in Northern Washington County, eleven miles north of Stillwater and seventeen miles south of Taylors Falls on Highway 95 at County Road 4.
For more info: www.marineonstcroix.org/artfairdetails.shtm
(651)433-3636
Email: marineartfair@midconetwork.com
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Find more art fairs for your 2012 season: www.CallsforArtists.com
You may think that I have it out for Madison “On the Square.” I don’t, and it may only look that way. I have always loved that show. However, they keep making these decisions that are questionable at best and are at worst are illegal.
Now, the latest decision is they have made is to charge an additional fee on top of the booth fee if an accepted artist wants to pay by credit card. The fee is $20 for a double booth and $10 for a single booth. I am not a lawyer but I am somewhat familiar with credit card fees. As I understand this, it may not be illegal to charge the fee, but all the major credit card companies have clauses in their contracts that do not allow for this fee to be charged. They have that fee so that people will use credit cards instead of paying cash or using personal checks. This sounds to be like an illegal practice. And that is only my opinion. In addition, they could get away with it, if they told artists that they would give them a $10 or $20 discount is they paid in cash, but the Madison “Art Fair on the Square” is making it a penalty to pay by credit card.
I hope that artists will question this practice and put a stop to this.
I am going to forward this to Annik Dupaty, the Madison, AFOS, Director of Events and see what her response is.
I do come up with the same conclusion that I did for the jury blog I posted earlier in the week. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU SHOULD. And I’m not even sure that it applies if it is an illegal fee. And again it appears as if Annik is more concerned with the bottom line than the ethical running of an organization.
To add to what David and David have already said about the spring Bayou City show, here are a couple of videos I shot during the festival.
Business cards were a hot item here. For many, it seemed as if the free handouts were all they could afford. I gave away many, many cards. I have them in two locations, one on my desk in the front of the booth, as shown in this video, and at the back, near the guest register. We must have given away at least 250 cards over the weekend. They have my QR code on them, as well as the standard URL. I haven't pulled stats from the last week yet, but it might be interesting to see how many hits the QR welcome page got after the show compared to the main home page.
There was performance art. In our section of the show, "Tree Guy" was very popular. A stilt walker in a very well made tree suit, he would wander around slowly and talk to the crowd. Some kids loved him, some kids were scared to death. He told jokes, bad jokes. In general, he stole the show whenever he was around.
There is lots to like about this show. Setup is easy, especially if you come on Wednesday, or early on Thursday. But the park path is narrow, and you have a limited amount of places to park. Big rig? Get there early, as I did. I was able to unload and get my truck and trailer parked in the back forty early on Wednesday.
We lucked out on the weather. Tuesday it poured all day. Houston and the surrounding area got nearly 6 inches of rain. But it cleared out Wednesday morning, and by noon, skies were sunny and the weather was cool. It was a gorgeous weekend for Houstonites. Normally, if the heat doesn't kill you, the humidity will. But this weekend, there was neither. Highs in the low 80's and lots of shade in our section made for a comfortable show.
Layout is average. Some spots had good park area behind them, while others had none. The whole show site is fenced in to control the gate. They charge $12 admission for adults and teenagers, kids are free. So they have to fence it. It has a big perimeter, too. Since the rains soaked the park, and many trees died in last year's drought, the park itself was in sad shape. Lots of lakes, puddles and swamps. This was one show that definitely required mosquito repellent. Some folks had a slough across from the booth, or behind it. My friend Randy Kuntz and some of his neighbors went to Home Depot and bought 4x8' sheets of CDX plywood to cover the mud holes. It worked, but it wasn't pretty. As David Forster commented, there was a stub near the food tents with about 12-14 artists on it. Bad idea, sorry. Both David and his neighbor, Brian Miller, complained about the slow traffic there.
But, despite the crowds, sales were slow for many people. The crowds were mainly there for entertainment. I saw a lot of 2-D prints walking by, but mostly smaller in size. Friday was quite slow for me, with only a couple of small sales. Saturday was a bit better, but way down in comparison to the fall show downtown. Expecting Sunday to be better, I was disappointed in the quality of the crowd. Many more walkers and folks grabbing business cards without really looking at the work, or engaging at all. Talking to this crowd usually scared them off. I did have several good nibbles on the larger pieces, but the bee-backs did not come back. It's just too hard to get into the park.
One detriment to buying anything larger at this show was the logistics of getting it home. With only two gates into the park, and very little on-site parking, patrons either had to lug their art on a shuttle bus or ask the artist to deliver it. The show does offer shuttle service to a nearby mall, but there really is no place for the patrons to park here within a reasonable distance of the show. VIPs were able to park near the entrance, but that's about it.
Nha Vuu and her three-year old daughter, in Nha's sunny new double booth.
Bright points:
Needs improvement:
All in all, it's a nice show, and well-run. But sales weren't there for many people. Would I go back? It's a long, long drive to Houston, almost as long as the drive to the east coast of Florida. I'll have to think about it.
Postscript:
I took a couple of days off before heading home, and drove west into the Texas Hill Country. The bluebonnets were in full bloom, and I wanted to experience them first hand. I would have stayed longer if the weather would have cooperated, but a storm front was moving in. I had one good day. This shot is from the area north of Frederickburg known as the "Bluebonnet Trail".
"Field of Dreams" -- the ball field at the Crabapple Community Center.
Here is another photo which shows the show site well.
Also I left out some important points. Kathleen Hughes, the Event Director, established an Artist Advisory Board for the show 9 years ago and their suggestions have greatly helped improve the show as Kat and the Staff listen and actually incorporate many of these ideas in the progressive success of the show. The entire staff is a pleasure to work with and bring a positive outlook with great vision to everything they do. During the show TV
cameras were seen several times shooting footage to be aired on major channels so that the Tourist population
who might not be reading papers knew about the show. Signage was large and prevalent in the area for the show as well. Hope this helps to clarify some things.
Best, Don McCoy
Should show organizers be allowed to show at juried shows? It seems way too easy to stack the cards in the process whether they are on the jury or help in jury selection of the jurors. Have any show organizers ever been rejected from a show?
This 30 year old festival has gone through many positive changes in the last 9 years. It moved from a donated ( very windswept space) to the current location approximately 8 years ago. It is a magnificent location in the Civic Center Park of La Quinta, Ca. .This park has incredible water elements with a lake and beautifully landscaped grounds with shade trees and Palms interspersed through the grassy manicured space inhabited by a small local population of Ducks, Turtles and Koi.
The show is a commission show and the 20% scares off many Artists who feel this is too expensive. Yes and No - How many shows cost a huge amount of up front money to participate in and then leave you with dismal sales which were actually a far higher cost? Here the staff truly does what it takes to bring in the QUALIFIED, ENTHUSIASTIC, EDUCATED ART BUYERS. Publicity precedes the event for several weeks including a major insert in the newspaper the preceding Sunday chock full of Photographs of a diverse group of incredibly interesting work which be at the show.The current weekend ( March 8 -11, 2012) which the show occurs on is the first weekend of the Major Tennis Tournament just down the road from the show with a shuttle running from the Tennis Tournament to the show so do both without the difficulty of having to repark which can be difficult at the Tennis Tournament. This weekend also has historically the best weather in March as a bonus. Most of the residents here are very affluent as evidenced by the housing you see in the area and many are Snowbirds with second homes here for the winter. This combination of factors results in event sales of approximately 2.6 million dollars to date for the 230 artists at the festival. This is an average of $11,304 per artist. Now as in any show there are people who for some reason or another do not sell well. Usually a small percentage who either don't interact well with the public, don't change their work with new interesting pieces, don't realize the importance of positive energy as a magnet for buyers, are new and don't have a booth display that is on a par with more experienced professional artists, don't take advantage of advertizing opportunities or any combination of the above. The people I talked with ranged between $10K and $48K with that occurring in both higher end and lower priced work. Please understand this is a sophisticated audience and even with lower priced work it must be extremely creative and excellently executed. Denise Robertson ( a featured artist for the show) is a perfect example of this combination ( She had a great show). She is a mixed media/jewelry artist from New Mexico who designed the "GOT ART" pin used to create the embroidery model for a version of the Festival T Shirts. I actually haven"t included the Sales for the Glass Featured Artist because it would signifgantly skew the results.
This is a professional show designed for full time professional artist to sell exceptional work to an enthusiastic audience. There are no children's activities at this show. That is not its purpose. This is not a show for beginners or people new to Art Fairs. They just don't have the booth display and presence to compete here. One new artist to the show, a young sculptor who I helped mentor after meeting him during setup, found it challenging with this being his second show and even with beautiful stone carvings, his display and people skills for closing needed work. Unfortunately he sold nothing at the show, however He did have a great positive attitude and instead of racing home (easy to do), He went down down to El Paseo Drive( Gallery Row for the Desert) and went Gallery to Gallery and ended up with a prestigious Gallery taking his work for a successful trip. (He has primarily been a gallery artist to this point.)
SetUp is very easy as it occurs over 2 days with cargo golf carts staffed by volunteers available to move your work to your space. You can also contract available labor on a 1/2 hour or hourly basis to assist you for a fee.On Tuesday there were signigant winds so the show did everything possible to help secure work and opened earlier on Wednesday set up 7AM and allowed artists to stay as late as necessary on Wednesday and come in earlier Thursday (opening day) to allow ample set up time. To protect everyone Booth Canopies must be secured by 36" rebar driven into the ground approx. 30" and clamped to the poles securely as a precaution. They remove it at the end of the show for you.
Lunch is on a preorder basis ( Bristol Farms - upscale food store provides them) and delivered to each artist every day for free as well as waters and snacks and coffee in the AM. The food at the show is not your typical show food - Ruth's Chris Steakhouse was making excellent steak sandwiches and The Fisherman's Grill ( another excellent restaurant) was there with quality food as well. There were several rest areas for patrons serving quality wine, beers, water, ice creams etc. There is an Artist Awards Party Thursday evening with beer, wine and an incredible array of food from numerous Area High Quality restaurants and everyone seemed to leave very satisfied.
Admission for patrons is $12 and literally I don't think anyone could realistically see it all in one day. They sell a multi day pass for $15 however all you had to do was ask to upgrade on the way way and they would do that for the $3 so you could visit as often as you want. Online the multi day passes were $12. Valet parking is available and many people chose this option. They do charge for self parking, $7, I believe. Attendance was 25,000 which is total tickets sold with many of this 25,000 coming all 4 days(multi day pass). On Thursday opening there was a blocks long line waiting to get in and buy and this was even longer and more populated on Saturday as these are the 2 busiest days although as we saw it every day was exceptionally busy with patrons.
All sales are done on their sales forms with either a speedy check out (you provide credit card for commission up front) or you go to accounting upon close of show and pay by check, cash or credit card then. Most artists seemed happy with sales.
Awards for the show are Best of Category and Awards of Merit with A Best of Show which went to Mona and Alex Szabados for their beautiful Enamelled High Karat Gold Jewelry. The jurors for these awards engage the artist and very enthusiastic and enjoyable compared to many shows. This is a highly competitive juried art show with applications on Zapp. There are 5 different qualified jurors for entry for each category. Usually this is 3 Artists and 2 others ( Gallery Owners, Educators or Museum directors or other consummate Professionals) for each category. This show is for Working Artists who personally produce the work for sale, not production studios or factory operations. The artists on the jury help to keep this show a level playing field of working professional artists with incredibly diverse , highly skilled execution and beautiful presentation. The photos of your work need to be very high quality, cohesive body of work as it doesn't matter how great you think your work is , it is HOW IT COMPARES TO THE OTHER HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL ENTRIES. Most Important, I cannot overly stress how important your booth shot is. It needs to be as much a replication of a gallery experience as possible. Extra attention on this will result in better sales everywhere. A white canopy with tables is not going to cut it. You are in competition with everyone else's booth display and many are quite extraordinarily beautiful. The Flea market look isn't cutting it. ?? Would you like to be next to this booth is a question asked of jurors??
More Photos of the site are coming later.
This is a great show for most exhibitors--lots of moola can be made.
So far, nary a peep.
Patricia Heckler via Facebook told me it was off for her this year compared to other years.
Jim Parker did it--so far are ya keeping it all to yourself Jim?
Just would love to hear some feedback from an important show.
We know things are tough in Florida (too many shows, too many in same location, sluggish economy, etc.), but is that trend not only unique to Florida?
Summers are always a time for big shows with big paydays. This year we got high gas prices staring at us, we got a national election, which yes, Geoff Coe, does impact our sales.
So, a report from Texas would be welcome--come on out into the light my fellow lurkers--illuminate us.
I will say thanks, in advance for any helpful info. Nels.
Hi
My first show this year is at Richardson, Texas. I feel like can make the trip in one day but I wondering if this just stupid in my part. I am driving from Chicago, IL to down there.
How do you prepare for a long trip like? I already check everything in my car and seems to be okay after $$ spending on it.
I just spent 1.5 hours trying to be compliant with the tax situation from Bayou City. Be sure you are well medicated before attempting to deal with these people. They have a mandatory system where if you fail to report any sales on a 1/4ly basis, you will be fined $52! One and a half hours getting set up only to have the built in calculator not work. Wow. My guess is that a lot of artists get the number, and cancel the account and Texas doesn't get their taxes?
Wow, kick ass show. Again!
This is the first year we opened for Friday night, and that was well worth it. People were walking thru the show well before the 3pm opening, and they were not just tire kickers.
Saturday was strong as well, and Sunday sealed it up tight!
The patrons are well traveled, educated art buyers, and they are interested in your work and the process.
Thank you Boulderbrook Productions, Richard Sullivan, Boca Grande Resort, the wine tasting volunteers, the tiki bar, the restaurants and musicians for making this happen. See you next year!
August 31-September 3
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Happy buyers at Arts, Beats & Eats |
Royal Oak, Michigan
Downtown Streets
155 Artists
Deadline: April 10
We invite you to apply to the 15th annual Arts, Beats & Eats. This festival is the "go-to" event that heralds the end of summer in metro Detroit, hosting more than 300,000 visitors who come to enjoy the amazing diversity of art, music and food in a cool urban setting.
This event is held in Oakland County, which is the third-wealthiest county in the nation (including cities such as Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Rochester).
The 155 artists chosen to participate come from across the country to join our celebration. Being an art fair artist is a demanding business. A professional staff awaits your arrival and we look forward to welcoming you with perks such as vigorous volunteers, easy set up and take down, good cash awards, free food and beverage tickets and personal attention to particular needs.
New this year:
This year we will miss Connie Mettler, who has left to pursue
People love this festival
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full time her commitment to artists through her various websites. Good Luck to you Connie!
We are pleased to add Donna Beaubien who has joined us as our new Associate Art Director to our Art Team. Donna comes to us from a long history as an artist and a director of art fairs, such as the Art Fair Chair for the Guild; Art Fair Birmingham, Meadowbrook, Greektown, and the Village of Rochester Hills Art Shows. Welcome Donna!
We know you are aware of the challenging economic times throughout the nation and in Michigan, but we want to reassure you that we are committed to meeting your needs and bringing you the audience you deserve. Ford Arts, Beats & Eats has been one of the few festivals that has been able to sustain a fine arts component over 14 years, and the event's recent move to Royal Oak and limited number of booth spaces, positions it as one of the top potential sales spots for artists anywhere.
Our promotion is considered among the best of art festivals
nationwide. You cannot be in the metropolitan Detroit area on Labor Day weekend without seeing specials about the arts activities on television, hearing artists' interviews on the radio stations and reading comprehensive feature articles in the press, directed solely to the juried fine arts show.
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| Buyers of all ages |
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Looking for more art fairs for your 2012 season?
Visit www.CallsforArtists.com
From Kristina Jones, Manager of Events for the Suburban Collection:
Hi Connie,
I have about 10 booths left and we are accepting any category EXCEPT jewelry. We are super excited this year, as we are trying out a Living Social deal for customers, plus we have upped our advertising budget, so we hope that turnout is better than ever. Plus, we have a first warm weather out of our way!
Lined up for the Great Lakes Art Fair opening
April 13-15
Novi, Michigan
Spring Great Lakes Art Fair
Suburban Collection Showplace
150 Artists
Show: Fri. 1pm-8pm; Sat. 10am-6pm; Sun. 11am-5pm
Artist Reception: Saturday 6pm
Please join us for the Great Lakes Art Fair, a unique fusion of lush landscapes, tempting food, and an optimal indoor venue create spring and fall events that are rapidly becoming established as the Midwest's premiere indoor art fairs!
Consistently lauded as one of the most artist-friendly art fairs, accepted artists are given postcards and free tickets for their customers, free electricity, a roving snack cart with complimentary snacks and drinks during the show, complimentary morning coffee and muffins, plus more!
What to expect:
The Great Lakes Art Fair believes effective promotion is as crucial to overall success as the selection of artists. Our mission is to deliver a high quality experience for patrons and artists that will assure qualified buyers, return visits and exponential event growth. A multi-level marketing and publicity campaign to promote the event throughout the region, including media partnerships in print, radio, television, direct mail and building awareness of this new regional event.
Participating artists are provided with custom GLAF discount coupons, e-mail blast content and other collateral materials to distribute to their patrons. Drive up to your booth to unload and load. Artist hospitality area and reception.
For more info: www.GreatLakesArtFair.com
