Blog

October 15-17
Rock Financial Showplace
Novi, Michigan
200 artists
Deadline: August 2

• Art fairs are always looking for ways to enhance the event both for artists and the attending public. This Fall the show will open on Friday at 12 pm and close at 8 pm. We will be returning with the hugely successful Friday Ladies Night Out promotion that drew over 2000 women to line up for entry on Friday! It also allows for some Friday setup for artists.
• Robust marketing campaign planned with media partners
  

hauling home the goods!

Fiber artist Sharon Snoeyink

• custom Great Lakes Art Fair discount coupons
• e-mail blast content
• free tickets, postcards and other collateral materials to distribute to their patrons
• drive up to your booth to unload and load
• artist hospitality area and reception
• artist gallery
  

www.GreatLakesArtFair.com/artistapply.html

We use for our online applications.

If it's 100 plus degrees, it's time for the Boulder show on Pearl Street. The show has a nostalgic draw for me, 7 years ago it was my first time to hang my stuff on the tent walls.Man, how much I have learned in those few years.

The show itself varies in success according to the weather.If it's hot sales are not. While we did OK this year ($3K/2 days) last year was cooler (over $5K), but the average for us is somewhere in between.No large work was sold, and I didn't see anything go walking past in the arms of the crowd. The quality of the show varies as well, this year I was next to a wonderful German woman, whose work was hand painted ceramic gothic birdhouses.There were more than a few newspaper tents filling up empty spaces,most of the veterns know to pay the additional $100 for a preferred spot on the mall.The asphalt east and west had no shade and it seemed to be primarily the newbies down there.

The show has gone thru 3 directors over the last three years, hard to tell what the show's direction will be (fine art seems to be slipping a bit) so we shall see.The crowd is tourist, not necessarily art buying but it sure feels good to see the mall packed with people. There were a few of the heavy hitters, but oddly enough they were all right next to each other.Two landscapers with 10X20 booths in direct competition, and two that show indegenous peoples in exotic locations were side by side.Whoulda driven me nuts.

The best part for me was the people.Boulder is known for being a bit on the left side of liberal, and their tolerance for street people means there is never a dull moment on the mall.In addition to the flaming juggelers,wandering troubadors and eccentric balloon vendors, this years prize for odd goes to the Marty Feldman look alike in the fuscia unitard riding a unicycle.His schtick was to quietly sneak up from behind an unsuspecting tourist and startle them.He would then ride off, a cooting and flapping his arms while Aunt Edna from Omaha wished she hadn't agreed to try Dr. Leary's "special sugar cube" back in the 60's.

The best part for me was being able to hang with my boys a bit.Stevo is my partner in the show circuit, and Wonderboy (Jon) came down from the mountains for the day. Like I said, time sure does fly.Last I looked these kids were playing in the sandbox. Now young men, they have helped each other thru some difficult times.Brothers in every sense. BTW: Stevo is spoken for but Jon (Mountain biker,fly fisherman,musician and gainfully employed carpenter is currently available)

I was pleasantly surprised to see a good friend,Texas Steve Hunsicker as a neighbor. Steve does some high end 3 dimension work,just wonderful stuff but he is one of the gems on the circuit. Met him a few years ago in a mountain show that pretty much sucked. No sales, rain every hour on the hour. There was plenty of bitching and moaning, but this guy was simply a joy to get to know. Steve will admit the shows can be tough, but we are there by choice and despite our best efforts to pick the good ones,weather, the economy,bad luck can all conspire to make things painful.He taught me being a good neighbor means being a good person.We also have a choice to be miserable, but his is always to make the best of things.Love the guy.

So we traded war stories, and the conversation went to reading body language.I think I am pretty good at this. Woman in the tent, man with the stroller.No way is she getting to buy anything.Man in the tent, woman with the stroller.Same thing. Guy with hands in pockets.Nope.Hand on chin, finger aside the nose.Something's cooking.Full shoulders square to a piece with hands on hips,good sign.A half turn, nope. Not gonna happen. So, to show Texas my expertise I "read" the people in the booth for him."See the guy in the black T? Just a looker.Too young, and has one hand in his pocket.No way will he buy". Yep. I sure know what I'm doing.Then Stevo yells me over" Pops: This guy (black T shirt) just bought a large canvas and wants to talk to you about the work". Yep. I'm still learning.

September 18 and September 19

• $3,000 in cash awards and purchase prizes
• a complimentary breakfast on Saturday morning and a dinner party for the artists on Saturday
  evening after the close of the fair
• Overnight security on Saturday night, which includes conveniently located, locked storage space
• booth sitters are available as needed over the weekend
  

This is an annual event held primarily on the Pearl Street pedestrian mall in Boulder, Colorado. This was my second festival ever and the second in Boulder. Set-up & tear-down were a dream for me because I was on the non-mall end of Pearl Street where I could just drive in next to my booth without having to jockey around anyone else. I expect folks who were on the mall had to maneuver around trees, trash cans and each other, making things slightly more complicated. And easy in and out was needed with temperatures around 104 degrees on Saturday. I had been warned that it could be hot, but even us locals were on the brink of heat stroke. (A quick note to the ladies - it does matter what type of underwear you put on in that kind of heat.) Management came around with juice and scones in the AM, and made just 1 trip daily for water. I had to call for a booth sitter on Saturday as the one who said she would be by in an hour or two for a potty break showed up 2 hours late. The Sunday booth sitter was much better. As for the potty, there were public restrooms down at the east end of the mall, but down on the west end where I was there was one lone porta-potty. I was glad that I had brought disinfecting hand wipes and my own roll of TP. And thanks to my toilet maneuvering I discovered that I can do yoga.

Saturday was a long day. Set-up started at 6AM and the show went to 8PM, and we were advised to remove our work for the night, so I rolled out of town at about 9PM. Sunday was better - I got in around 9AM, show started at 10AM and went until 5PM. I managed to tear down and get on the road by 6:30.

Sales were mixed. I had only one sale and that came on Sunday afternoon. The metal artist across from me was selling like hotcakes, but the potter and the digital artist adjacent to me had poor sales as well. The potter just barely made her booth fee and the digital artist only had a couple of sales as well. The three of us are all local, and it seemed to us that shoppers had a "I can always catch up with you later" attitude towards the local artists and were more likely to buy form the out-of-towners. And the mall booths are the prime real estate at this show. You can't request a booth location and if you get stuck at either of the far ends your traffic is way down.

Will I go back to this show? Not likely. Despite the reasonable booth fee, the hours, heat and lack of sales will keep me away next year, and it sounded like my neighbor wasn't interested in coming back, either. The late show hours were good for the metal artist (big, heavy things people bought just before going home), but otherwise the dinner crowd was just that - interested in the bars and restaurants. I would recommend this show to artists from outside Colorado with mid-range work only.

Slow Show in comparation with the last year festival. The strong hit did the things more unconfortable. I was luky to have my booth in the line close to the water. Many complains from Artists that were in the Island. One costumer told me about he could not be there more than 5 minutes. Btw I nailed the show, wasn't to good than the last year, but to me and my neighbords was positive bussines show. My second year, and I will waiting for the 3 rd.

I bring frozen tea to every art show. It was so hot this morning that half the bottle melted in the short time I was there. It was in the high 80's at 10 am. My friend and I figured if the artists could be there, so could we.

This is one of Amy's smaller shows. There were 3 or 4 new artists, the usual artists at every Amdur show and several of the artists that only do a few of her shows. Didn't notice a lot of bags although I know of one jeweler who is very happy. It was just too hot to spend a lot of time there, especially when you knew there would be another Amdur show next week and you stood a good chance of seeing these artists again.

So in a year where weather seems to play as big a role as the economy, I have discovered it can be too cold for a festival (Beaux Arts in Miami) and too hot for a festival (Buffalo Grove,IL). I am beginning to appreciate indoor festivals!