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We traveled to Purdue country, the home of the Boilermakers and the setting for the Round The Fountain Art Fair. It was the 37th year for this 1 day event and my second year participating.

The event is held in the center of Lafayette around a grand old courthouse (pictured here). Most of the artist's booths (75%) line the sidewalks that circle the perimeter of the courthouse and the remaining artists setup on the courtyard inside perimeter walls (yes, there is a fountain on one of the corners of the courtyard...not humongous.). Setup is the Friday evening before but only after 6PM. There is little coordination; mostly artists are left to their own good manners. From a sales perspective, this setup works fairly well; there is a small enough number of artists that everyone is visited. However, as an artist it is much easier setting up on the street since you must dolly everything into the courtyard from only a few entry points (a wall circles the courtyard).

Nearly 100 artists participated and the quality of the art work was good. The selection jury did a good job screening. The show offers few amenities: no security, no booth sitters, no water, there were coupons for a free cup of coffee at a nearby cafe. Parking is limited to a garage so trucks and trailers are on their own. They did have artist awards (several) and they did produce a nice brochure that is freely distributed to patrons by a team of volunteers. The amenities are not a big deal for me, keep the focus on marketing. That said, I think Friday night security is kinda basic and not all that costly. As artists, we all hung our wares and hoped for the best. I didn't hear of any thievery.

OK, the bottom line, How was the show? This is a solid little show and sales were good though maybe a little down for some (this is based on my very scientific survey of "So how ya doing?"). The weather was hot, high 80's, and most of the crowd came out to buy in the morning. By 1PM I could hear the crowd crying "We're melting, we're melting." and sure enough they did. Those few hours in the morning were great for sales! Sales at this show were interesting for me ... I sold a few of my most expensive framed items and many, many of my smallest items. Very few sales in the middle. Sales were either high or low. As the show was finishing, I had matched the exact number of items sold and total gross dollar amount to nearly the dollar from last year. But then ...in the last 5 minutes of the show, I made a custom sale of my largest piece... whoo-hoo, a great way to end the day.

Places for improvement: If there's an area that the show needs improvement on, it's communication with artists. The phone number was removed from the web site and was not published in any information package. Everyone was required to communicate via email. This would be fine if there was a response to emails... only cyber-silence. Many artist expressed frustration about this. Here's the show number for future reference: 765-491-6298

The jurying seems to work. Five images of your work and a booth image is required. They use a homegrown system and image size is limited to 400 pixels. That's rather small for viewing details. The jury image is about as large as the image I posted above.

Overall, this is a good show and I do recommend it. The community supports it, booth fee is low, layout is good, but you just need to know that there are not a lot of amenities.

Cheers,

Bongo Java is what a coffee house should be like, Battered and Fried has the best sushi rolls, Art and Invention Gallery has the most amazing collection of artists and art and the Antique store at the end of the street has the sweetest ladies behind the desk and great unique finds… more on these fantastic places later….

It was also so refreshing and fun to be surrounding by some of the most amazingly talented artists on the planet. I have no complaints on the quality of art and artists at this show, everyone there was over the top talented, and I was glad to be in their company. I believe this fabulous group of artists was assembled primarily through word of mouth through a couple of other awesome artists trying to pull together a good show and it worked. I would like to work with this group of people every weekend.

Now the not so positives….First I would like to preface, that I, like most of us here, make my living doing this. I don’t have another day job, this is it. My busiest year was over 40+ art shows, I now average 2-3 a month, all over the country. This isn’t my first dog and pony show. In over 10 years of doing this I have only run into a few promoters or show directors who have been rude or condescending, most treat us like the professionals we are.
Not this time.

The first red flag - We and some other artists I spoke to emailed the promoter for a ‘heads up’ on the Nashville weather/ flood situation. As most of the country was aware, Nashville had experienced a natural disaster and was under water 2 weeks before the show, and we were a bit concerned about whether the show would go on, or what to expect after traveling 750 miles across country. The promoter did not respond. I figured they might be overwhelmed with the crisis and decided to network with everyone we knew in the Nashville area. With the weather looking bright and sunny we decided to chance it and headed out. The only email we received from the promoter was a rules list with a ‘map’ attached…. More about the ‘map’ later.

We cased out the location on Friday night when we arrived. A mild panic set in when we found no signage, no indication of an art show. We stopped in the Kustom Thrills Tattoo shop, and they had no idea if there was an art show in town. We wandered around for a bit and saw a couple of traffic barriers on the curb and thought that might be an indication of a show. When we got to the barriers, we saw the telltale painted numbers and booth corner marks on the asphalt and assumed we found the spot. We noticed also at this point that booths were half on and half off the curb. Doable, but a heads up would have been nice.

Constructive Criticism #1 – Communicate with your artists. Let them know what is going on with as much info as possible. Send them an email assuring them that the community is recovering from the recent natural disaster and looking forward to seeing them, accompanied by a map with booth numbers on it, and most definitely any and all information pertaining to their booth or location setup that they might want to be prepared for, i.e. half on half off the curb. You really can’t over communicate.

Setup was to begin at 8a Saturday, show opened at 11. We arrived just after 7a to setup, just to avoid the mad rush of an 8a lineup. We showed up with a fellow artist that we were traveling with. We pulled into an empty parking lot midway between the just one block long show. A couple of other artists were also there early setting up. We walked over to the promoter and her two companions and tried to introduce ourselves.
‘Do you have your map?’ we were asked. ‘No, we didn’t see the reason to print it’, we responded. We were curtly handed a map, which for the record was not much more than a rectangle on a piece of paper and told drive to the top of the hill, and she would meet us up there in a few minutes. As I began to ask her for our booth numbers as we were already parked, she just turned her back on us and walked away. With a raised eyebrow, I got back in the car and we both drove to the top of the hill and waited for her to check us in. Artist friend checked in first, with my partner standing behind her. In the most condescending tone possible, the promoter told my partner that she would be walking our artist friend to her booth and then she would be back to talk to
him. Let’s keep in mind that there are approximately 55 booths here, divided equally up and down the street. It wasn’t brain surgery. Five minutes later she returns and walks us to our booth, which was exactly where we had originally parked. We watched her do this for the next hour until the backup of artists was too much.

As we had figured out the night before, we were half on half off the curb. With a bus stop in our spot. We started to assemble our tent, an Archtop Canopy for the record. Our tent does not ‘pop up’. After four needless interruptions, assuring her we understood how to set up our booth, finally we were ready to move our assembled tent into position. But now we were thwarted by the previously mentioned bus stop. We snugged up to it as tightly as humanly possible, but we were still about a foot over the mark of where the fire department wanted everyone backed up to. The promoter came down again and told us we had to back up. I said that
was not possible, as we were as snugged up and tight to the bus stop as possible and she said, ‘oh, I thought you would go over it’. Aghast I just looked at her and said that that would not be happening. And just to assure you dear reader that this one spot with a bus stop in it was not a fluke, the spot two down from me had a telephone pole support wire going through the center of it, and a few other booths on the street also had some
anomalies. This after an earlier snarky comment from her about walking the show and marking off booths, These anomalies could not help but be noticed and avoided.

Time to grab a quick coffee, before the show starts, at the aforementioned fantastic little coffee shop at the corner of the show, Bongo Java. Standing in line we started chatting with a few people around us, as they all wanted to know what was going on. We told them that there was an art show on the street with artists from all over the country here to display and sell their work. Again no one in there knew anything about an art show.

Ok – setup complete! Open the gates we’re ready to go!

Each and every person that walked into our tent that morning was a local that accidentally stumbled upon us and hadn’t had any information about what was going on. One of the other artists that participated in the show that was a local did mention that they had seen a write up about it in a local independent paper. But not one person we talked to during the first day had shown up to this show as a destination. They hadn’t heard a word of it and all lived in the neighborhood. Needing a break, and their being only one porta potty working (and I don’t think that was really part of the show, could be wrong though) I went across to the gallery next to me, Art and Invention Gallery. A wonderful gallery full of awesome original art work. Chatted up the gallery owners, who coincidentally are on the local arts council, who informed us that only two days before had the promoter stopped by to let them know what was going on and give them a poster. Up the street to the antique store, same story. Most of the merchants in the area we spoke to were vocal about being annoyed at an outsider coming in and not communicating with them or involving them. Their words.

Constructive Criticism #2: Promote your show please. Involve the community, make them feel a part of it, get buy in. A poster delivered 2 days before the show is not promotion. Let’s see a banner please. This is particularly important if you are expecting them to provide the bathrooms, food and refreshments. Also if you are not going to provide trash cans, and expect the patrons and artists to dispose of their garbage in the local merchant’s trash receptacles, you should tell the merchants that. They were not happy.

Saturday we spent the day telling all our customers to go home and tell their friends, hoping for a busier Sunday. Sales based on the fact finding we had done should probably be considered fabulous, but we were definitely disappointed. Sunday’s traffic was a bit better, and we did hear that there were people that were there as a destination spot because their friends had called them the day before. Sunday’s weather was sunny but HOT HOT HOT. Our glass atrium phone booth wing didn’t help matters, allowing for almost no ventilation.

Ok time for the wrap up I guess…

Fabulous location, great artist participation, arrogant show director who didn’t communicate with the community or the artists, sales were barely adequate. I have seen a few blogs and FB posts from artists who said they had a good show. When I read them, I hear the excitement for the East Nashville locale,
and I concur. I think East Nashville is a fantastic place for an art show, and would love to see this festival develop, but I am very disappointed in this promoter.

I get this was a first time show. I understand that it takes work to build a show and get a following. I love that
fellow artists jumped on board to try to build this brand. I would have like to have been treated with more professionalism, and since this promoter professes to have a lot of experience running shows, I would not have expected so many amateur mistakes (obstructed booth assignments, lack of facilities, no trash receptacles, no
communication).

Well, I finally have the website up and running. Now just need to get lots of "stuff" to put on it both for sale and for looking at and hopefuly, it will generate business. The website is drakesneststudios.com. I'm still learning the ins and outs of it so be patient. Any and all suggestions will be welcomed. I do know that I have to go in and remove the pictures, make them smaller and figure out out to do thumnails, which I think would even be nicer so that you can see a lot and enlarge when you wish.

Did my bit, such as it is, to help celebrate the birthday of our wonderful site by becoming a contributor. With all the talent, the show listings, the help, the mentors, the teachers and the fun, I can't think of a more worth-while cause.

Be back later with more "stuff" as I get it together. Spent all day Monday painting my studio to the point that on Tuesday, I could barely more . Hopefully, I'll be getting paneling to put up on the wall so I can get the wood flooring and carpeting down and then the cabinets up and then I'll be ready to move everything in! Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!! Will post pictures when have the debree neatened up a little. ~2~

This is a different type of art, performing arts, but thought I'd mention it. I am doing a stage production at Alpena Civic Theatre in Alpena, Michigan that is being put on like an old radio show. It is a tribute, of sorts, to the wonderful days of radio mystery theatre. There will be acts with Ellery Queen and Periot, just to name a few. Should be fun - no make up, no costumes, no lines to memorize, just sound effects, reading in character and lots and lots of fun!

More later - Terri at the Drake's Nest in beautiful Ossineke, Michigan

This is my first time posting pictures to a blog. I’ve heard that it’s difficult to relate to individual pictures because they get sorted differently. Here I’ve added a text time stamp to identify each.

SHOW: Louisville at the Summit (by Howard Alan Events).

Dates: May 15-16

Location: The Summit ( a shopping mall in North East Louisville)

The area was surrounded by some very nice neighborhoods and looked like it had the potential to be a good opportunity. For several days before the show the weather forecast called for Thunderstorms on Sunday. Saturday was suppose to be good but Sunday looked like disaster. As Saturday arrived, the immediate weather forecast called for scattered thunderstorms in the area (even on Saturday afternoon) and then even more so on Sunday. We all kind of figured that we had to make our sales on Saturday because Sunday could be zero.

The weather happened to be good all day Saturday. As we watched the pending storms on an artist computers and others iPhone, it appeared all of the wet weather just missed us a few miles to the south. Sunday was not bad weather wise. It just drizzled almost all day long, sometimes not even enough for an umbrella.

Load in was great as we could park either next to our tent or within 30+ feet in the parking lot. Most artists were in the road in front of the mall stores. A few of us were on the store side of the road on the sidewalk. I was in a location where I only had 10’0” of depth between the edge of the curb and the 2’ high brick planter at the rear. Consequently there was NO storage for me. And even though there was 10’ clearance on the ground, there was a tree in the rear planter that took up about 18 inches of my space at the top of my tent. So I had to tie off my tent to the tree and winch it backwards into the tree limbs to allow me to sit on the curb. But all was well, because I had a corner booth with no one within about 50 feet of my side. So anyone could see my items from far away.

Parking was at the other side of the stores in the rear, delivery parking lot. For me, that meant a 300+ yard walk each way to go to my vehicle. One artist had a motorized scooter which was quite convenient for him. So working alone, with no booth sitters, I was not able to go to my vehicle except by vacating my tent for an extended period of time.

A few artists that I spoke to said they did well at this show last year. However the big disappointment this time was the lack of attendance. On Saturday there didn’t seem to be any more people present that you would expect to have gone to the mall anyway. On Sunday I saw more artists than people all day. I’ve attached pictures to show the lack of attendance. With time stamps on each. The parking lot photo is for customer parking right behind the artists booths. As you can see, no one was there, even an hour after the show started.

I’ve done several Howard Alan shows this year and so far have been impressed with the attendance that he is able to get at his shows (weather permitting). One artist talk to the promoter who claimed to have spent more on advertising this year than last year. Unfortunately it was to no avail.

I traveled 8 hours from home and had lodging expenses. Still I made expenses (barely). I know several others that made expenses, but not much more. Two jewelers that I know seemed to do fairly well. I also spoke to a couple of artists that zeroed (at least through midday Sunday).

My biggest sale was Sunday, to a be-backer from Saturday. And on top of that, it was an 8 year old boy. On Saturday he recognized one of my images and we talked a while. I told him the story behind it and he said he would like to have it. It was $300. I asked him how much money he had. He said “I have $60”. I joked with him and told him that he needed to go tell his parents he needed more money. Never expected to see him again. Then Sunday, he came running back (50 yards ahead of his parents) who let him purchase the canvas print. I told his parents that I wanted to hire him for “VP of Sales”.

40 Questions Blog Series – Question 20 – Is packaging important and what is ideal for what I make and sell?

I have sold and shopped at many art fairs over the years and one of the things that makes me remember an artist, whether it is a good or bad , are their shopping bags. I can say, without a doubt packaging and the use of good gift bags are VERY important. It brands your work. Good bags/packaging protects your work once it leaves your booth. Also, it enhances your work too. I am amazed by how so many go through the hard work of making their work but fail miserable when it comes to packaging. This is why question 20 is devoted to the topic of packaging.

Question #20 – Is packaging important and what is ideal for what I make and sell?

I loved watching the Cosby show when I was young and one episode always stuck with me regarding this topic. In the episode one of his daughters came home from college and dropped a bomb on the family that she and her new boyfriend eloped (perhaps got engaged). The family was disappointed in the news and Bill Cosby compared the situation of presenting the new guy like a fine steak on a trash can lid. Mr. Cosby said (in not these exact words), “Imagine a bug juicy steak – you like steaks right,” he asks the new husband/fiance. “Well, imaging a huge thick steak cooked to perfection – its juicy, seasoned just the way you like it, the aroma wafts through the air and you HUNGRY. Now here you are, sitting at your favorite restaurant and the waiter brings you the steak, but instead of a plate, they serve it on the most filthiest trash can lids you have ever seen and smelled. Will you still eat that steak now? You could very well be the most nicest man in the world, but my daughter just 'served' you on a trash can lid.”

Are you selling fine art, but packaging it in recycled grocery bags or mini black plastic bags that are more suitable to pick up dog feces? You might not see it as horrible, but it is good customer service to show that you take pride in your craftsmanship and that continues in your packaging. Granted not everyone falls into this category, but if you think you do, here's my three tips to better packaging.

1. Don't buy retail. When I ask people where they buy their nice bags they will tell me a party store or Micheal's Crafts stores. Having nice gift bags do not have to cost you a lot. Check out Nashvillewraps.com or BagsandBows.com (there are many great companies) for example and check out their selection and their prices. You may find nice bags could cost anywhere from a dime to a quarter.

2. There is gift wrap, bags and boxes for all art. I recommend clear plastic bags – available at Office supply stores – for 2D art for protection against bad weather and as advertisement due to it being see through. Jewelry can be packaged in jewelry boxes and/or organza bags. Flat paper bags work well for prints. At the store I work in part time uses recycled tissue wrap to wrap pottery and glassware as well as put them in Euro style plastic bags. All else can be packaged in both plastic or kraft style bags.

3. Branding. Make your bags stand out and work like walking advertising for you by printing simple labels with your business name with contact info and paste it on the front of your bags. Coordinate your packaging theme so it works with your medium or think about how it can tie in with your business cards, website, or general color theme you use in merchandising your work. For me, my whole new business theme was inspired by my new shopping bags that I use when I changed both my business name and theme one year ago. I went from using gingham kraft bags to plastic shopping bags with a tropical print on them (seen in photo). To this day I get just as many compliments about my work as I do my bags. The best part is when someone at a show sees the bags they want to know where the customer got them, thus driving new customers to my booth because their thought is “if those bags are nice, I can only imagine what he/she bought is nice too”.

Have a packaging story? Want to share photos of your packaging? Use the comment button and have fun. Tune in for Question 21 where I will tackle the importance of relating to your customers to know how to sell to them. - Michelle Sholund, www.quickcraftartisttips.blogspot.com