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This long running neighborhood show was held April 26-27, always the weekend before the Kentucky Derby. It's in the middle of the area called the Highlands, just a couple blocks off a very busy area known for it's eclectic shops, restaurants, and night life in an older section of Louisville with beautiful homes that is well maintained. Parking is an issue so the smart ones arrive early to make sure they can find a parking spot.

I've done this show for about 20 years and watched it change from a casual neighborhood show that had the fine art and crafts at the top half of the long street this is on and the "crafty" work at the other end. The quality work has become the entirety of the show with the "loving hands crafts" completely supplanted. There are still some unusual items to be found but the quality is good.

There are four rows of booths in this show, with one row along the sidewalk with little to no space behind you depending on where you are, and many of those are raised from the street by a couple of feet or so. Those have problems with access if it rains and turns the grassy strip between the street and sidewalk muddy. The more enterprising artists come prepared with a wide plank and nailed on cleats to make a set of steps so the customers don't fall or slip.

There is a grassy median out from one side of the street that has two rows of booths back to back. The inside row, facing the sidewalk, are even at the edge of the pavement and you have to contend with sloping forward about 6-8 inches and a downhill slope that drops another 2-3 inches, so you have a 2-axis tilt to contend with. Bring lots of pieces of 2x4s for shims, or if you have the space in your trailer or van, bring a pair of 2x6 or 2x8 by ten feet long boards. it's a lot faster shimming the boards to be level so the tent and the display panels are all easily leveled. Since the ground has a rounded crown, it is a tedious pain in the butt to get everything leveled. A point of aggravation that has developed over the last several years is that the artists on the far side of the median have been pulling their booths back from the edge of the pavement as much as 2 and 3 feet which means you have very limited space between the booths. For those who like to sit behind the booth or have some work space back there, this creates a problem. This is an issue I plan to send an email to the organizers about, since the inside row has no choice but to shim and level, and the outside row is moving to more level ground. Things need to be on a more even footing, as it were.

Once past the grassy median, the street is more of a wide boulevard and another row of booths are across the street on the sidewalk again. That location has wider sidewalks and there is storage room available behind the booths.

A nice benefit for the artists on Friday afternoon set up is $2 brats and $2 draft beer. The brats are local from a packer in town known for their excellent meats and brats. The brats are $5 during the show. Arrive early on Friday, have a leisurely set up and close down with the brats and beer :-)

There are bands present but they are off to the side with the food tents and not excessively loud. The music runs the gamut of blues, country, and rock, and surprisingly well talented. No objections to the way they do it at all.

The weather was very nice this time, but for whatever reason attendance seemed to be down and so were sales. Most artists were saying sales were down 1/3 to 1/2, and mine were down about a third from usual. I had an order of canvas prints I had decided to farm out, 17 20x30 pieces, that were in delivery but didn't arrive in time for me to have at this show. The physical size of the packaging dictated it go by truck instead of UPS, and the extra 2 or 3 days on delivery time killed me. FWIW, I used to do St. James and I always did better at this show than St. James. It's a more leisurely crowd and people will take time to look rather than flow along with the St. James river of people.

Tear down is fairly easy with most artists getting out in about an hour to an hour and a half, although the inside of the median is congested. Take your time and enough people will clear out that you can get your van or trailer right up to your booth or very close to it. 

I never did see my groundhog buddy who has had a burrow in the middle of my tent for the last 4 years. I've noticed the burrow gets bigger each year as the portly furball keeps growing. One of the organizers dumped a bucket of gravel in the hole this year and the next day all the gravel was kicked out of the hole. They offered to move me, but a few 2x4 blocks stuffed in the hole with a a bunch of mulch took care of the hole so no one would step in it. They always have more than one entrance so he can go somewhere else, but you have to wonder if it would break through and get pissed enough to chew on the Propanels or flip bin.

This was the first year the show has gone to the dark side with Zapp and there were teething problems, but organizers pretty much got those kinks worked out. For a while they used slides like everyone else, then the person doing the judging moved and there were no slide projectors available, so you sent actual photos to them for judging, and they finally went to Zapp to try and streamline the process. This is a good dependable show ran by a neighborhood association as a fund raiser. I see many of the same artists returning year after year so that has to say something about it.