My wife and I have done this smaller show four times in the last six years and this time it was the BEST EVER. In fact it was our BEST EVER show in this area and we've done Great Gulf Coast and Art in the Park twice as well. We've always featured well in awards here, and this year we rocketed back to the top by winning Best of Show ($1,000). Sales have been good some years and poor the others, but this time they were well above average for us since we sold two originals along with a good number of unmatted/unframed repros. I always love it when customers buy our repros in bunches like bananas, which is what several of them did do. And we also sold some of the higher end repros to boot.
Since this venue is held in the Gulf Breeze High School parking lot, setup doesn't begin until after school hours at 4:30 p.m. Friday. Artists are assigned to one of the 4:30, 5:30, or 6:30 unloading time slots by the committee. It's usually pretty easy, really. But this year weather created some havoc during setup.
Weather was perfect for the show hours, but really a mess during setup since a cold front (music to my Wyoming ears) pushed a major thunderstorm through Pensacola area all day Friday and into very early Saturday morning. We didn't install artwork until 6:00 a.m. Saturday since the storms throughout the night were horrific. Explosive thunder kept us awake all night long. But as predicted by forecast, the rain stopped at sunrise and the clouds moved out of the area leaving the rest of the weekend in perfect performance. Today was absolutely stunningly beautiful with temps only in the lower 70's and humidity lower as well.
Awards deliver slightly smaller purses than other bigger Florida venues and are not given in categories. Judge was Carrie Ann Baade, a Florida State University at Tallahassee Professor of Art who presented 21 awards totaling $7,000 and hugged every recipient. Awards were presented during the catered Italian food Saturday evening dinner (I had the vegetarian eggplant whatever with salad, good bread, and super cheesecake and it was wonderful).
Breakdown of awards are as follows:
Award of Honor at $200
Melanie Miller - Jewelry
Tom Grow - Ceramics/Pottery
Alisha Dubois - Sculpture
Henry Warner - Mixed Media
Mike Venghaus - Jewelry
Mary Kay Samouce - Jewelry
Michael Young - Wood
Meredith Hartsfield - Glass
Award of Distinction at $300
Larry Allen - Ceramics/Pottery
Douglas Brandow - Jewelry
Michael Jasinski - Photography
George Elliott - Photography
Staci McLaughlan - Fiber & Leather
Peter Rujuwa - Sculpture
Michael Fagan - Mixed Media
Michael Demaline - Wood
Award of Excellence at $500
Jake Asuit - Mixed Media
Marcia Moritz - Mixed Media
Doug Odom - Oils & Acrylics
Celeste North - Glass
Best of Show at $1,000
AB Word & Barrie Lynn Bryant - Graphics (pastel)
Comments
I concur with much of what has been observed by all but the original poster. I saw little happening in sales on my end...Went with a brand new body of work for me (decorative porcelain) and while the crowd was gracious and showed real interest in buying/commissioning, very few actual transactions occurred.
One other point that I would like to make that differs from what others have said: those of us on the judge's final leg of her rounds didn't get the opportunity of more than a minute's worth of he time. With only one-half hour left to the show, our entire row had not seen the judge and a few fellow exhibitors had to go to the staff to get her. I was greeted by the judge at 4:40 with "I only have a minute..."
The best: the Saturday evening dinner; the worst: check-in on Friday...waited 45 minutes in line, after my scheduled time, then 45 minutes after that was asked SEVERAL times, "how much longer was I going to be?"
Bill really don't see the weekend change playing a factor in why it was slow.
Having lived in pensacola until just recently I can tell you locals were way down.
I can usually count on seeing 25 or 30 people I know this year only about 6 or 8.
Snowbirds are usually not a big factor for me as 2d artist. Vacationers are usually
more likely to buy.stayed out on the island and I can tell you the beach was packed
Ron - We heard a number of people say that the date/weekend change had a big impact on the crowd. I don't understand why unless maybe some of the snowbirds had already left.
"This year was way off especially for 2d and for that matter anything that resembled art"
Love this line!
Have to agree w/Bill on the small crowd and very slow sales. About
half of last year for me. Most people around me had trouble making
expenses. Folks across from me selling $10 spoon rings stayed
packed all weekend, just that kind of crowd. This show has always
been unbalanced and up and down. This year was way off expecially
for 2d and for that matter anything that resembled art
Oh, we have two more FLorida events: Tarpon Springs next weekend and then LeMoyne Chain of Parks after a weekend break. Then we're Artist Guests of Honor at a Lincoln, Nebraska Fantasy & Science Fiction Convention, ConStellation 5, the last weekend in April. Then home.
I am sorry that I didn't get by to meet you and Staci, Bill. We'll see you down the road. Congrats on the award and sorry for the misspelling of your last name. They got it right in the show program, but wrong on the awards list.
Art Fair Videos, our first outdoor art festival was SunFest in West Palm Beach back in 2004. We sold a nice original and won a big cash award there. We only did SunFest again in 2005 where we won an even bigger award and sold an even more expensive original. But it was such a long and hot show, we just couldn't keep doing it. Plus we would depart West Palm at about 6:00 a.m. Monday morning and drive at least 625 miles each day for four days in order to make it to our consistently best show ever, Rough Rider International Art Show at Williston, ND held each year inside the Airport International Inn on Mother's Day weekend. That show no longer exists.
Prior to 2004 all the shows we did were indoor hotel, community hall, and convention center shows. ComicCon International San Diego was a big one on our schedule each as was World Science Fiction Convention and other bizarre events such as Metaphysical Fairs in the Denver Merchandise Mart. We never thought we'd see outdoor festivals at Florida in our crystal ball, but one fine day we did and now we're hooked. WOOHOO!
Thanks for the review Barrie. (Saved me some time) I'll add a couple of observations. This show does everything right (almost - detail below).
The setup would have been perfect were it not for the weather. The times were arranged so that the booths next to a given spot were assigned different times so that there was no crowding of vans/trailers. It would have worked great except it was raining so hard, everyone wanted to get the tent up before taking the panels out. It slowed things down a little but everyone I saw cooperated.
This is a parking lot show and there was tons of storage behind the booths. There were a fair number of no-shows. I think the Friday weather scared them off. This meant there was even more storage!
The committee and volunteers were great. In addition to the dinner (we couldn't attend as the race to get the tent up on Friday meant a really sore back on Saturday), there was ample water delivered to the tents, free breakfast (fruit, pastry, crackers), artist-only bathrooms, and generous awards for a small community show.
Tear-down was complete chaos. Vans started driving in at 5:05 and some tempers flared. We chose to dolly-out over flat asphalt to the artist parking lot - a very short distance from our booth.
I wish I could say the we experienced the same kind of sales that Barrie did but that wasn't the case. To round out the picture, there were a many fine artists who didn't do well at all. We saw very little fine art being carried out (2D or 3D). Best sellers (other than Barrie) were wood chairs and other craft items - some fine and some not so fine.
Gulf Breeze wasn't very interested in our work. (Our best sale was to another artist!)
Happily the judge was! She spent a long time with us and told us she really liked the new work we are auditioning in advance of our spring/summer season in the mid-Atlantic. Her comments were very positive and we really appreciated the time she spent with us (and would have even if we didn't get an award.) It was a very long day for her and she gave most artists a fair opportunity to talk about their work.
Okay - my only real objection: the other booth that was very busy was HRI. I don't get it. They don't belong in juried shows that have rules stating the artist must be there and no production houses allowed.
This was our last Florida show for the season and Staci is driving the van north as I type this. It was a well run show but not our target. Thank goodness for judges who love bright colors!
You just reminded me about the other reason awards are nice -- you don't have to exchange work for them! They're like "free."
How many years have you been going to Florida? Are you heading home from this show?
Any show with that kind of prize money is on my radar. I bet I read a listing for it in Sunshine Artist. The first year we did it, we won Best of Show and had great sales. And the added extra for us that first year was that the sponsor of the big award decided to add $500 more to the prize just for that year. SO it was $1,500 and it was unadvertised. They waited until just before announcing the award to mention that BIG detail. And we like the committee, ease of setup, and the community.
The show used to always be the week before Fairhope, AL. So they changed the date for this later time in March. We used to start our tour with this show since it is 450 miles closer to home than Central Florida. And it's an easy show to do, really.
I am glad to be out of Wyoming for a while. We've not had quite the winter that you've had (and Minnesota), but it's been a doozy. We live along the Big Horn River, and the icebergs broke up on it and flooded the town of Worland just 22 miles north of us. That made national news. No one had ever seen giant ice sheets like that piled up in the neighborhoods. Really unbelieveable.
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