Blog

This is the first time I have been to Alexandria and I feel in love with the town as I was driving in.   I always get anxious when I do a show for the first time.  I worry about set up, logistics, lots of other stuff but I arrived early on Friday so I had all day to play before I had to start my worrying.    I was able to have the best tourist day  in  Alexandria and even took the water taxi over to Maryland (I  had  been to 45 of the States and Maryland was one I needed to add to my list, so now I am at 46 :)   On the water taxi  ride and from many of the rooms at the hotel you  can see the Monument, the Capitol, the Memorial and probably a bunch of other land marks I didn't recognize.  A very smart and extremely talented artist told me that I had to stay at Hotel Monaco when doing this show, so I did.  Best advice ever.  What a treat and it made my life and doing the show so much easier.  It is located on King Street in the middle of the show.  To make it even better my booth was right at the main entrance to the hotel.    The Monaco has a 5pm Wine Hour and on Friday evening the place was packed with artists.  It was great to see some familiar faces and to get some tips on set up for the next day.  What a wonderful way to start the show.

Saturday morning started EARLY.  I woke up at 2:45am and couldn't go back to sleep so I figured I might as well line up.  We were allowed to start as early as 3:30 am.  Everything was rather calm and went as smoothly as an early morning set up can go.    The booth set up is tight.  Most of the booths are back to back, with a couple blocks being single row of tents.  I was in the back to back section.   The double yellow lines of the street separated the backs of the booths (so maybe 6” to 10” apart) and  if everyone set up on their tape each person had about 18"-24" (depending on your neighbor) side storage space on one side of your tent.   No storage of anything allowed on the sidewalks and most tents were not allowed awnings.    I had a bunch of stuff I couldn't store so I grabbed a luggage cart and brought it up to my hotel room.  I was all set up and back in my hotel room showered and taking a nap by 6 am.  Thank goodness for the on sight shower because it was one of those really humid morning set ups.  Getting back up at 9am and practically rolling out of my bed into my booth was priceless.

At 9am there was already a decent amount of people walking around.  Sales started right away.   At 11:15 am I had a chance to look around and all 5 booths next to me were swiping cards at the same time.   I wish I would have had my camera out, but it was buried in the tiny storage area and I couldn’t physically get to it :)  Everything was going great, lots of people, art lover and buyers.  Even though this was my first time doing a show in this area I ran into some clients from Florida and Atlanta.  After hugs and kisses they gave me serious warnings about the storm that was coming.  All of my clients were doing this starting after lunch.   Around 3pm I overheard a police radio and asked the officer what the real report was and he told me that they would make an official call in 10 minutes but it looked bad.    About 30 minutes later the Alan team was telling us to baton down.   I was a corner booth in the direction the storm was coming so I was extra worried.  I don't know the exact time but sirens went off and the police evacuated the streets and we were told to take cover.  The sirens and the police over the loud speakers make it much scarier.  Even my cell phone was blinking red and texting me that there was a tornado warning.  The wind and rain hit fast and we all zipped up and got the heck out.   The feeling of standing shoulder to shoulder with everyone staring at their tents through the lobby windows and saying Hail Marys in my head is one of the worst.      It seemed like forever, but actually was not that long, maybe 20 minutes I guess, the tornado warning was over.  My tent and everyone else’s held!!!!! We still had some wind and rain but the worst seemed to have passed.   I didn't realize until the next day that my tent was a bit twisted.  I probably will have to replace a couple of metal trimline parts, but that shouldn't cost me more than $100.   We were told we could go back to our booths if we wanted and open up, but if we didn't want to then we didn't have to.   It was 4:45 pm, the Wine Hour was about to start, I had gotten up that morning at 2:45 am and had just had a minor  panic attack from the storm, so I decided to go upstairs, take a shower and go to the Wine Hour and most of the other artist did the same.  So the first day got cut short but it was still a pretty good day sales wise considering.

Sunday we woke up to the best art show weather day possible.  The perfect temperature, sunny and no humidity.   People came out again.  Both days the crowds were exactly what I like, lots of people but not too crowded that people can't see or get to the booths.  Again lots of art was walking away from the show.   At the end of the show everyone around me was happy.

Break down starts exactly at 5pm.  The patrons have to get off the street and you are not allowed to make any more sales past 5:15pm.  This is taken very seriously and the patrons are told to get out.  I know it is a bummer because people might have been able to make a few more sales at the end of the show but it really makes break down much easier.   I planned on staying the night at the hotel, so I was just going to break down then go to my room and wait for everything to die down but everything was going so smoothly that by the time I had broken down I was clear to drive in.  I was completely finished, had run to the store and back in my fancy hotel room by 6:45pm and I was taking my time.   It felt so civilized.  Really the whole weekend did, except for the storm. 

The only difficult thing about this show is parking.  That is tricky if you have an oversized vehicle.  If you decide to do this show get some tips from others before you go.  I was going to post some pics but if you really are interested the Howard Alan facebook pages has the best ones, unless anyone would like me to post my tourist pics from Friday :)