Lu and I did something that we have never done in 50 years of doing Art Fairs. We arrived at Mountain State Art and Craft Festival in Ripley, WV on Thursday to set up for the weekend. When we arrived we found that the booth space assigned to us was totally unacceptable. It was a10' x 20' vertical space in a U shaped tent arrangement facing another tent in the middle of the U shape. There was only one entrance to the tents as one side was closed off by a food vender and the entrance was about 10' wide facing a lake. There was only one entrance to get to our booth space which was occupied by a large truck and trailer which left no room to even dolly in to our space. We have always had a 20' horizontal space for all the years that we have done this show. This show has been one of our favorite shows for years ( 10+ years ), but it will be our last time.
After careful consideration and talking to the show director who could care less about our problem and concerns. We drove home. it turned out to be a 400 mile round trip.
We hope other artist did well and enjoyed the use of our space.
Comments
I was there also! Yes, the booths were in Mountain State Craft Fair provided tents and were laid out with 10' of frontage and 20' deep. There was no option to be in any other space. Most exhibitors were unhappy with the layout. All this being said, unfortunately you did not miss much Lu. The fair was down about 40% for me despite the excellent weather, much better than the heat we frequently suffered when the fair was in July. It may be that the public has not caught on to the change to mid-September that started in 2016. The saving grace of this fair is the commission structure makes it difficult to have a losing show ($200 tent rental + 15% of sales).
The tent rental has escalated in the past few years (I believe it was around $100 when I first did this fair in 1999. Unfortunately, the fair has spiraled down from 5 days with 30,000+- paid attendance to the present 3 days with probably less than 10,000 attendance(and from 250+ exhibitors to around 80 craftspeople this year).
I don't presume to know what the "answers" are but I may try to hang in there one more year (I also get follow-up orders months after the fair.
Good fortune down the road! Ed Collins
Space was 20' deep x 10' wide as opposed to 20' wide by 20' deep
I am not sure what you mean by a Vertical space as opposed to a horizontal booth space. Sorry it did not work out for you and caused all that wasted time and money.