North Virginia Fine Arts Festival, Reston VA

This was the first time I did the North Virginia Fine Arts Festival. Judy Christian already did a short report on the show. I will try to give a bit more detail and my experience at the show.

The show is set up along the streets in a high end outdoor mall type setting with high rise condos along the street and town homes near by. There maybe homes within walking distance I am not sure. Reston is a rich suburban area out side of DC and near Dulles airport. I don't usually like to do suburban areas for my contemporary work but with the reputation of this show and after doing shows around DC for the past 3 years clients of mine encourage me to try it.

Set up is on Friday. The show is extremely organized. When you arrive you should have already printed out your load in pass and then you can drive up to your assigned street entrance. You are met by someone who walkie talkies into the festival grounds to find out if there is room for you to get to your spot. They are good about keeping everything clear. If you have an oversized vehicle they give you a pass for the oversize parking lot assigned for artists. You can check in at your leisure at this point. My area was an easy area to get to so I was able to go right in and park across from my booth. I am sure it isn't this way for those along the main street, but there was plenty of room for the artists to park their vehicles near their booth and set up with out having to move right away. I had been warned about the wind at Reston. There are a lot of tall building in this area and it creates wind. Lots of it. Reports of wind were 4mph that day but setting up the booth we had to be careful. It really helped being able to have the truck right there so we didn't have work blow down while setting up. I used extra weights. I was a corner booth and there was always a decent breeze and sometimes big gusts. Most of the booths are on one side of the street. There is a small area of the show that has booths on both sides. I was set up along a new street for the show. It was off the main strip and looped around the park. I had a ton of room behind the booth. Depending on planters and what business was behind you may be able to blow out and store work. Not much room on either side of the booths though.

The show treats the artists very well. Before the show you can call or email them and they are beyond helpful answering any questions and working with you to help make it a good experience for you. During set up I had a few patrons pre checking the show work. The patrons were excited about the show. They seem to wait for this show and they know that the art at this show is top notch. They seemed disappointed that the show wouldn't be open Friday night, I guess they use to do that. This year they had a fund raiser event that the artists were invited to. The event was very nicely done. I didn't see a lot of artists there but I only stayed for about 20 minutes. Nice spread of food and drinks but not enough for a meal. So I ran off to one of the many many excellent restaurants in the area. The show also offered a good deal at the Hyatt right at the show. Great hotel. It was a treat. I believe they had breakfast for the artists but I was all about room service, so I don't know what they served. On Saturday night they had an awards party and again possibly dinner but the restaurants had amazing happy hours for food and drink so I did that instead:)

Saturday the weather looked iffy. Possible thunderstorms but most likely in the afternoon. The weather held out until 5pm when staff came around and closed the show and it poured. Everyone scattered. Saturday was a great day though. Like others have mentioned the crowds were not huge. Especially off the main strip. I do originals only, large scale abstracts. Usually my client will walk an entire show if they are looking for work like this. So for me I don't think it mattered too much that I was not on the main strip. I am sure for people with lower price points under $1000 they would need more traffic. Along the main strip around the stores the crowds were good. I went a couple times back to my hotel and noticed a BIG difference with the crowds both Saturday and Sunday. Around noon the park held two dance recitals with speakers for music. This was across from my booth. When I saw it being set up and the dancers arrived I was not happy. I have to say it was done well. The first dance group had nice soft music, they didn't play it too loud and it was not too distracting. It lasted for about 10 minutes. An hour later they had a group of ballerinas in beautiful eye catching costumes. Again the music was at an appropriate level and a nice back drop. The second group of dancers were so pretty that even I had to go watch. This group did stop the people in their tracks and they watched the dance and missed the art. It only lasted for about 10 minutes and after both performances the audience would walk the loop around the park. Staff did check with us to make sure the music was not a problem. Over all it was a nice add to the show if you need to have those type things. Sales on Saturday were great. By noon two pieces were gone. One of them the couple had come down from their high-rise condo saw the piece and bought it with out even looking through the entire booth or walking the show. They were worried to walk the rest of the show first because they were familiar with this show and knew work moved fast. This is one of the reasons patrons were there on Friday. They wanted first pick. Price not an issue in this area. Not everyone at the show is qualified buyers but the majority are. The ages ranged from young professionals to retired. Since our work is big we have to deliver. Many sales were walk able with the new propanel cart I just got. (this thing is awesome). Also in my area clients could drive up very close to the booth and load up.

Sunday the weather was up in the air again but it held out great. The show opened at 10am. I was alone at the booth since my partner had to do deliveries from Saturday. A suggestion for anyone who has to deliver in the DC area, do it Sunday morning. Traffic can be crazy in DC but Sunday mornings the roads are clear. So I was alone but it didn't matter no one was there until after 11 am. I find it rarely is necessary to open a show before 11 am on a Sunday but maybe that is because I am not a morning person. Crowds were light in my area for most of the day. The buying frenzy didn't feel as strong but my booth was down a lot of work so the presentation wasn't as strong. There were still a lot of good sales happening for large scale work though on Sunday.

Break down, the block captain was great. She came and talked with each of us to discuss load out strategies. The rules are NO breaking down of any kind before 5pm. Then break down get a pass then get in line. My booth and the booth next to me were able to park our cars with in 50 feet of our booths in the afternoon. So we let the block captain know we would dolly out and we would be out before the start time of 6pm allowing cars to come in. Both of us were out by 5:30 pm and drove by the line up and it was LONG. I am so glad we were able to dolly out. I am not sure how load out went for everyone else.

I really like this show. I would love to be invited back and I was happy with my location. It had a lot of perks even though it wasn't on the main strip. I was close to the Arts Center where they had the artist amenities, think clean real bathrooms. I am a sucker for close clean real bathrooms. Water was brought around to us or you could just go to headquarters and get what you needed along with snacks. I was also in front of a CVS, ice and cold beer whenever I wanted. The volunteers and staff of this show are amazing. The director of the show came and meet us and asked us what she could do if anything. She really wanted feedback. She lives on site and knows the show well. On Sunday I arrived to a messy booth with all the wind and rain. I use to bring a broom to all my shows but realized that almost every artist brings a broom. There is no reason to have 200 brooms at a show and most artists are willing to share. So I have since ditched my broom. Well I guess all the other artists around me have done the same because I couldn't find one. A volunteer came up in the morning and asked if they could get me anything and I told them yes a broom. A few minutes later they arrived with one, waited for me to use it and continued along the street to see if anyone else needed it. There were booth sitters all over the place. If you had a question of any kind they had the answer or would get the answer to you asap. Great show to do if the DC area is your market.

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  • Loved reading about this show, Melanie.  Felt like I had been there!

  • This sounded like a great show.  Maybe some day I will see you there.

  • Sounds like a great show, Melanie...thanks for the insightful critique, happy you did well.

  • Thanks for posting, Melanie. I'm glad that you had a good show.

    You were lucky with teardown, the artists on my street started to bring in their vehicles around 7:15.

    We were out 10 minutes after that.

    Judy

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