Bayou City Art Festival (Downtown Houston, TX) (http://bayoucityartfestival.com/date-time/). October 13-14, 2012.With about 300 artists from around the nation this was one big show! 

Show Organizer/Promoter: Art Colony Association

Booth Fee: $30 Jury Fee, $425 Booth Fee. Apply for State of TX  Sales Tax License about 60 days out.

Logistics: Check in for this show was from 9-4 on Friday and then again later prior to the show. It was worth it for us to check in early in order to get a sense of the landscape, Houston has a lot of one way streets and the festival/downtown area is at a crossroads of at least 3 expressways. Once we had checked in we did a tour of the area to figure out where the artist's parking was. I'm really glad we did as it took about three tries before we got there! Did I mention that Houston has a lot of one way streets U-turns and expressways intersecting in this area? Even the GPS didn't help much! Once we figured it out it wasn't hard to return the next day. Load-in for the show was divided by where your booth was. Those artists that had elected to be in one of two park areas had an early load-in on Friday. I chose a street location so load-in was in the evening. I made an art donation to their fund raiser and it gave us a half hour lead on the pack which really made a difference. The vehicles were staged at a lot about half a mile away from the show site and there wasn't a show representative there till later. Artists were wandering around wondering what to do, there were a LOT of first timers there.

All of the vehicles were funneled down Bagby St. and from then on you were herded by the color of the pass you had on your dash. One of the volunteers was misinformed and had us turn around upon load-in only to have us turn around again when we were ready to depart. Hmmm. Other than that it was pretty uneventful. Getting out wasn't too bad either. You pack everything up, find the guy with the passes, run (or walk fast) half a mile to the parking lot, zoom in with your van, pack up and get out!

Interesting note about motels. They all seem to say "Downtown" in their descriptions, don't believe it. Unless you actually have a hotel room downtown you'll probably be in some industrial region on the east side of town about 7 miles away!

Show Hours: The show runs from 10-6 on Saturday and 10-6 on Sunday. It probably could have ended at 5 on Sunday as most artists were visiting with each other by then.

Amenities: Show volunteers come around with water and snacks quite frequently. There were a lot of volunteers at this show so if you had to take a break you could readily flag one down. An early breakfast was available on both Sat and Sun with an awards festivity on Sunday along with the breakfast.

Demographics: The show had a nice broad range of ages. And those that were buying were just as diverse. Within the first half hour I had 2 customers come in and buy which left me with the false impression that this was going to be a hot show. After that it was about every three hours before a sale was completed. Sunday was a little better with only 2 hours between sales. How much did I gross? Not nearly enough to pay for what it cost to be there!

Food: As I'm writing this 2 weeks after the show I'm a little fuzzy on the details, maybe someone else can fill in the missing parts. There was a "food-court" in the middle of the show and other vendors scattered about. I didn't go there as I had pre-paid for lunch. Artists had the option of buying lunch on both Sat and Sun for about $6.50 each day. A nice box meal of  a sandwich and snack was delivered around 11 AM on Sat.  I had made an art donation to their Art Heist and, had I been aware of it, I could have made more use of the VIP artist hospitality tent. Didn't find out about that till after lunch on Sunday! Next time she's mine!

Reflections: Overall downtown Houston is not a particularly attractive urban landscape in my opinion. Although the area around the show venue has some nice parks and the performing arts center is nice. A feature they have in common with Denver is a pedestrian/bicycle path along the river. It makes the urban landscape not so cold and foreboding. I was talking with a patron who said, "Houston doesn't like old buildings, they tear them all down and build new ones." Apparently no one must stay downtown much as there weren't too many restaurants around or open late. As I mentioned I had a booth on one of the streets which made getting out again pretty easy. Those that elected a booth inside one of the parks probably had a pretty late departure.

After we found the parking lot on Friday morning we decided to do a little excursion to Galveston Island. It was only about an hour away and made for an enjoyable day away from Houston! The island is about 2 miles wide and 7 miles long, more of a sand bar than an island and what is still left from the big 1900 hurricane disaster is kind of quaint. I'd recommend a trip down there.

I would definitely do this show again if I'm invited it seems that it has some potential. After all didn't Sunshine Artists rate it in the top 100 this year! I don't get it...Some have argued that doing a show so close to the election had an effect on purchases but people weren't particularly talking about the upcoming event. I'm kind of up in the air about shows. Do you attend a big one because it draws a large crowd or do you stick to little ones so there isn't so much competition? Six of one, half a dozen of the other. If I could find some really good little shows I think I'd stick to them as they are less hectic overall.

Votes: 0
E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of Art Fair Insiders to add comments!

Join Art Fair Insiders

Comments

  • James

    Last time I did Cottonwood(fall) follow by Bayou. I did all my money in Cottonwood. I figure out all my expenses was cover by Cottonwood and Bayou will make very happy but Bayou was big let down. I only made 400 for the entire weekend. A lot of people but very few buyers. Given that I also have a very small audience and my work is not for the masses.

    I enjoy the Houston area but my sales wont let me even consider give them another try.

  • Yes, Connie, if you donate a piece with a retail value of $200 or more, they give you early load-in times, and the privilege of grazing at the VIP hospitality tent. This fall, the main food booths and the VIP section were way the hell on the other side of Sam Houston Park, behind the artists in that park. Not central at all.

    The load-in has been staged at "Lot H", over by the circuit court for a couple years at least. And there are no show people to help line up vehicles, so it's chaotic at best. Dogwood has a very good system in place for getting people in order and then herding them into the park. Bayou City could go to school on their system, but it does seem to work ok. Karyn and I were in the early load-in, and we were able to pull the big truck and trailer right up to our space, unload and then pull it back to the hotel. (This year's host hotel was the Crowne Plaza, south on Smith Street, nearly a mile from the show). Setup was fairly straightforward. They had the electric on even though the 26 page handbook(!) said it wouldn't be live until the next day. Helps to have some light, as the streets are fairly dark.

    The booths in Sam Houston Park seem orphaned to me. I think they located the VIP tent and the food booths down there to move traffic into the area. Not sure that it worked that well. I never got any of the food from the VIP tent. 

    Sales were much slower this year than last year, even though last year we had a washout on Sunday. This year's Sunday seemed as if we'd get the rain over with, but we did have moisture until about 5PM. I packed the big double top wet, and had to lay it out on the driveway the week after to get it dry. Even with almost two full days of selling opportunity, this year's crowd was less energetic, and bought less than last year's. I did see some good sized pieces leaving the show both days though. Not too much small stuff though. A very selective crowd of buyers, and a whole lot of lookie-loos.

    People have told me that they do better at the spring show in Memorial Park. I'm not sure about that. It's much harder to get people back to the tent as the layout is really spread out in the Park. One big circle, easily a mile around, and people ride shuttles to the park as there is very little parking close by. Again, similar to the Dogwood setup, except BCMP has not got the urban dwellers that Atlanta has.

    As far as big vs little, I've always found that I absolutely need to have a large crowd to make good sales. The crowd needs to be well-educated, or my ratio of lookers to buyers goes way up, to the tune of 1 buyer per 1,000 passersby, or more. So the big shows work better for me. But my work has a fairly small audience. Not mass market, by any means.

  • Love it -- am I understanding this correctly? If you made a donation to their fund raiser you got some preferential treatment for load in?

    Was your vehicle near your booth for restocking?

    The thing about the Sunday hours, as I understand it, is if you say a show will end at 5 people stop coming by 3, but if it is 6 or 7 they will come a little later. Can't win.

    Do the big shows, or the little ones? That is the question, and you've got the answer: Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I think part of it may be price point. I don't think there are loads of shows where you can sell more expensive work, so people whose work starts in the four-figure range may have fewer choices and have to go for the big ones, whereas the rest have a larger variety to choose from.

    Thanks for the report, Brian. I've been waiting to hear ...

  • Thank you, nice review

This reply was deleted.