We spent the better half of the day wandering around from booth to booth. Much to my surprise, out of maybe 70 booths we poked around in, and perhaps 40 that we actually spent significant time in, only 2 artists took the time to come and speak to us. ONLY 2!!!! Simply shocking....
She clearly loves the arts and artists and even buys art at the fairs...
In addition she notes the lack of websites among the artists that she was particularly interested in.
Last month I attended the East Lansing Art Fair with Chris Ritke, the man who developed EntryThingy.com, a digital uploading system. As we walked the show you would hear people asking artists if they had websites and the invariable, "no, I do all my selling at the art fairs". After a while Chris was shaking his head and asking me why a person wouldn't take advantage of any way they could to let people find them, if not now, at least for another look at the art.
Me, I can understand about wanting all selling to be done at the shows so other things can be done when you aren't there. BUT -- some day you may not want to do that particular show, you may be incapacitated and unable to do art fairs, you may need supplementary income...someone who loves what you do and has never met you may stumble upon your website and come to find you at an art fair. I don't know about you, but a website can also be a sort of insurance policy.
My husband, photographer Norm Darwish, stopped doing photography and art fairs altogether in 2006, yet we keep his website online because phone calls and emails do come in from time to time that result in sales.
event that has had its problems with crowd control -- it is THE big summer event. Back in the 1970's it had over 700 exhibitors (not artists-exhibitors, I'm sure you get the distinction). Today maybe 350? Still a big event.
in August is a refreshing place to be. 