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Colorado Artfest at Castle Rock (http://www.castlerockartfest.com/index.cfm). September 8-19, 2012.With about 178 artists from around the region.

Show Organizer/Promoter: Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce. Admission is $5 each, $3 for Seniors, and Children under 12 are FREE.

Booth Fee: $35 Jury Fee, $310 Booth Fee. Apply for State of CO  Sales Tax License on your own.

Logistics: I've done this show off and on for several years and noticed it pretty much hasn't changed over the years. When I first did it they had the area around the courthouse fenced off and booths were 2 and 3 deep on the lawn so if you happened to be on the deep end you might not have been seen. Then there was the year I was on the back side of the courthouse down wind of the kettle corn...nuf said?

They moved the show down the street to the Philip S. Miller Library parking lot which allowed things to spread out a bit and the show expanded into a parking lot behind a tire/liquor store combination. The first year they did this there were a lot of artist complaints about visitors missing them in the expanded lot. The chamber tried to rectify this with additional signage the next day. I believe in data and not anecdotal observation, to me it seemed like equal visitation was given to both sides when I picked out a few visitors from one side to see if they'd show up on the other side. This year the signage was much bigger and greater effort was given to getting visitors to visit both sides of the show. The dead zone this year seemed to be artists that were placed in the middle area between the two halves.

The patrons at C.R. seem to be pretty conservative in their tastes and although parts of Douglas County have a higher per capita income they fall into what would traditionally be considered the "nouveau riche", they got the money but not the breeding or should we say they are not all that art savvy? Is that more "PC"? Maybe if they supported their schools in the bond elections and didn't have to cut arts (as-well-as other) programs they might have a better appreciation for the arts? Oops, I'm editorializing...shame on me.

Anyway, the artists are staged at the Rodeo/Fairgrounds a couple miles to the south and let in as space allows. I was in line prior to the 12 o'clock line-up time and seeing as I had a space in the back lot I got in fairly easily. There were representatives and volunteers of the Chamber helping keep congestion to a minimum. Both sides (lots) of the show provided ample space for storage behind the booth unless you happened to be me and 13 other artists that were lined up against the fence on the east side of the north lot. Artists on the west side of the north lot had the sidewalk, artists in the middle of the parking lot had lots of storage behind them and then there was us. Some of us had space on the side for storage and others didn't. One artist I know of that is critical of this show believes they want to stuff the show as full as possible to get those booth fees, perhaps there is some truth to this? Artist parking is supposed to be back at the fairgrounds with a shuttle van but by Sunday I saw a lot of artists parking on the streets.

The show starts at 9 am on Saturday with very little turnout and ends at 6 with most people gone by 5. There have never been that many people there at 9 and it would be better to start both days at 10. The crowds arrived and trundled past the booths with little buying energy, which is par for the course for this show. I thought that the years I didn't do this show and a new line of work, might make some difference but I didn't notice much to speak of. The show ends on Sunday at 5 and would be better to have ended at 4 as the "crowds" were long gone by 3.

Load-out was pretty uneventful till about 1/2 hour before stopping. The wind picked up rather strong and almost lifted my booth away after I had gotten all the weight off of it. I had it tethered to the fence behind me but I think that did more damage than good. I had to scramble to get the top off to "trim the sails" as quick as possible. Is this unusual for this show at this time of the year, not really, sometimes its been raining pretty good during set-up! After the photographer with the huge moving van got out of the way getting out wasn't much of a problem.

Why did I do this show this year? It isn't far for me to go, about 20 minutes south of where I live, it isn't too costly to do it and I thought I'd give it another whirl as I hadn't done it in a while. After deducting the booth fee, jury fee, cost of goods sold, etc. coming away with $50 makes it doubtful that I will do it again any time soon.