Well, the truck has been unloaded, the bills have been tallied, and the verdict is in on our first time participating in the St. Stephens Art and Craft Festival in Coconut Grove. It has taken us two days to drive home so I have had a lot of time to reflect on our experience. Fair warning, this post will be long as I want to give detailed information for anyone thinking about doing this show. First, I want to say that this show is run by the nicest group of people you would ever want to meet. This show is a church fundraiser to finance their good works, good people doing good work. They have been doing the show for a long time and have organized it very well. The venue is the church parking lot, basketball court and surrounding areas. In other words it is tight. Load in could have been a nightmare, but it was not. We were given a schedule and told to follow it. When we arrived at our appointed time we had to wait a little while before being allowed to drive adjacent to our booth for our 45 minutes of unload time. One of the many wonderful volunteers acted as traffic cop to insure that everyone could have an unobstructed entry and exit. Parking after the unload was an issue. Basically for parking you are on your own. The show information packet had a map showing where the public parking facilities were located but you have to pay to the going rate to use them. If you have an over size vehicle or a trailer like we do the only option was a surface lot about 2 blocks away. On Friday parking was $6.00 for 12 hours for each space. When the show started on Saturday there was a 20.00 per space charge. So, for the three days of the show plus the set up day we had $92.00 in parking fees. There is not much the show organizers can do about this without the cooperation of the City of Miami. But here is the deal, the city gains so much tax revenue from this event and the Coconut Grove show that goes on the same weekend. The hotels were packed, the restaurants were busy, and money was flowing mainly because there was an art show. The city collected sales taxes, lodging taxes on inflated room charges and so much more but we had to pay to going rate to park?
When the show opened at 9:30 am on Saturday we had high expectations. The crowd was sparse for the first couple of hours. Those around us said not to worry as the crowd attends the Coconut Grove Show first and then come to this show later. On Saturday we had a good sales day. Sure enough more people showed up in the afternoon. We had a 900.00 sale, a 450.00 sale, and a 500.00 sale along with three prints for just short of a 2,000.00 day. We knew our expenses were going to be high for this show but we wanted to test the east coast market for our work. Besides, I had never been to Miami and wanted to see the place. The crowd was light on numbers but we had enough buyers to have a good day. We had high hopes for a good weekend. Alas, it was not to be.
On Sunday to describe the crowd as sparse would be kind. At about 1pm I walked into the street to see where all the people were. Just down the block was the entrance to the Coconut Grove Show. There were four lines 50 people deep waiting to pay the $15.00 admission. There was a hoard of people coming down the street and they all headed for the other show. Our sales on Sunday were 350.00 and the same on Monday when the crowd was even smaller.
Next door was a buy/sell market set up in a parking lot. I think that hurt this show tremendously. Many of the people we saw had come directly from the buy/sell. One person there was selling the most bizarre plants either of us had ever seen. It was in a small hanging pot. with some green leaves visible from the top, with long stems hanging down the sides with what can best be described as blooms resembling used condoms at the ends. Person after person walked by holding these used condom plants. One person walked in our booth with one and explained that the used condom part was like a Venus Fly Trap and ate what ever entered. So now we had people walking around with carnivorous used condom plants. Also available at the buy/sell were chairs painted white and stenciled with the logos of the local sports teams, hammocks no doubt made in China, and best of all CDs of steel drum music. The steel drum guy brought his instruments and played along with the CD for hours on end. His stamina and determination were remarkable. I really enjoyed his music. It was relaxing and soothing..for perhaps the first ten times I heard it. After three days of the same 15 songs over and over again it got old. Luckily at about 5pm each day he got tired and turned on Latin dance music that got everyone going. At the end of the show I thanked him for his musical addition to the experience. He said he had not done as well as he hoped. I said join the club and have a safe trip home.
Load out could have been a disaster but again it was not due to the excellent work of the show staff. When completely torn done, one sought a pass from the volunteer. Traffic was controlled so that everyone had a clear path to their booth. After having an unfortunate experience at our last show running over another artist's cart with our trailer, I decided to wait until the coast was clear before I tried another close quarters maneuver. We zipped up our tent and went to dinner. An hour later the area had cleared out, we dropped the tent and loaded up, easy, peasy.
So here is the bottom line on this show and Miami in general. First everything is expensive. It is a big city during prime season. The show staff is wonderful. There was an artist's dinner Saturday night where they awarded $10,000.00 in prize money. We won a Merit Award. There was a continental style breakfast each morning which we cannot eat but others said was good.
Miami traffic is a nightmare. We saw more craziness on the roads in four days than we have seen in any other big cities we have ever visited combined. Where did these people learn how to drive? Keep your wits about you on the roads.
Hotels are expensive. We waited too long to look for a room. We ended up in a place that was horrible north of downtown. We left after one night for a place next to the airport. This location was a much better commute to the show as we did not have to pass through downtown. We would recommend staying on the west side of the city for either show for this reason. Be ready to pay parking charges at the hotels. They wanted to charge us 25.00 per night for our trailer because of "extra" security required. In other words, an up charge rip off. We negotiated that down but did have to pay extra. Ask for a room away from the expressway, the road noise is really bad.
The roads are a maze of interconnecting webs, of which many are toll roads. If you do not have any cash with you, do not be concerned they take a picture of your plate and bill you later.
Food, especially good food can be expensive. A couple of options near the show with reasonable prices are Greenstreet. Food is reasonably priced, drinks are expensive. Greenstreet breakfast was excellent each day. Spillover is a good dinner choice within walking distance of either show.
We loved the vibe of the place. The multicultural aspect of the city is great. Every night after the show we went out to shoot (we are photographers). We saw an ancient monastery built in 1141 in Spain and transported to Florida piece by piece, classic examples of Art Deco architecture framed in neon, an area re-vitalized by spray art, and a beautiful city by the ocean. So, we lost a few hundred dollars on the show, spent a week of our lives driving about 900 miles each way having experiences we will never forget. One night we made a wrong turn and ended up in the valet line for an exclusive party on the biggest yacht I have ever seen. There were more Maseratis, Bentleys, and Ferraris than I knew existed in the world. Our Ram pickup stood out as a very unique vehicle in this classy environment. I quickly decided to make a three point turn and get out of there before I was blocked in by another 300k car. In the process I squished a couple of their traffic cones. Hey, no one was hurt so it was a successful maneuver.
The only problem was a lack of qualified buyers at the show. The vast majority were there for the beer and popcorn. If it had been a local show we would have been happy with our sales, but we were a long way from home with a lot of expenses. Both artists who have done this show for several years and patrons commented on the relative lack of attendance as compared to previous years. If you are considering doing this show understand you will have a big nut to crack to turn a profit. Hopefully attendance this year was an aberration and the buyers will return. If we had not had the two big buyers we had on Saturday we would have been in a big dark hole. Most folks we talked who had to travel barely covered expenses.
Comments
LOL I was being generous on the crowd number. So I don't disagree. I am a diabetic so I couldnt really partake of the breakfast either but we ate at Greenstreet as well and the food was great. A local told us of a few other places and they were just as good.
Since we came from Buffalo.... 2800 mile drive total.... I don't think we can take a chance either. I do wish I had given more weight to someone who reviewed the show with the words.... DONT TRAVEL for it. :)
It is especially hard to take when you read Melanie's review of Coconut Grove. It sounds like they were over run with people. Did you eat at Greenstreet? We are gluten free and cannot usually eat the bagels etc they have at the artist's breakfast. We had one dinner there and breakfast all three days of the show. Excellent food at fairly reasonable prices for the area.
Even if they make some changes to bring the crowd back I do not think we can take the risk to come back. It was a long hard drive and the expenses were very high. I think your crowd estimate is too high for the numbers we saw on our side of the parking lot.
Sara, We were in the parking lot near the entrance (across from Greenstreets). One of our artist neighbors asked everyone how they heard about the show and it was either: 1.) We fell into it. 2.) We knew about it from years ago. .... No one saw any advertisement. Most who knew about it commented that no one was there. Since they take in an admission fee, I am sure St. Stephens has a tally of the attendance. I would venture to say it was closer to MAYBE 5000 for all 3 days. Shame they really work hard on it.
Ouch. Fantastic review of a mediocre show. Glad to hear you made a decent profit overall!
Wendy,
Thanks for adding some important information I left out. Where were you? We had a gentleman who lives nearby stop in our booth on Sunday afternoon. He was very knowledgeable about photography and actually wanted to have a conversation about technique and not about whether a particular piece would be right for over the couch. Anyway he said he has been coming to the show for over 15 years usually late in the afternoon to avoid the heat. Usually he sees swarms of people heading back to their cars with packages and framed pieces. This year far fewer people and hardly anything in their hands. Several people said in previous years they could hardly walk down the parking lot and look in the booths. Not so this year. We feel very lucky we did not lose even more money than we did. Thanks for chiming in.
I concur with everything Craig and Sara said. Here is my take:
LOCATION: Miami Florida holds 3 Art Show Events on this weekend. Coconut Grove is referred to as the "Main Show" and St. Stephens and another Merchant Parking Lot with Vendors go on at the same time. Coconut Grove charges $15/person, St. Stephens $3/person and I believe the nearby Merchant Lot I believe had no admission. This takes place in a city area.
HOURS: 9:30am - 6pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday of Presidents Weekend.
SHOW COST: $45 Entry Fee + $475 Admission Fee
SETUP: This is staggered and scheduled on Friday and I had a good experience with it. It was very well orchestrated. I imagine different areas of the show hold more challenges than the one I was in. I can say that getting a car in every night and then again in the morning is not allowed because of the tight quarters so for the first time ever we left the artwork in the tent over night. The show did have the Miami Dade Police as Security and they did a good job.
ARTIST PARKING: The closest parking lot which is city owned was normally $6 but on the days of the show went up to $20 a day. So this worked out to an additional $60 cost. I was very glad it was nearby as there were a number of artists who dolley-ed things in and out.
WEATHER: Gorgeous. Miami in February is not hard to take. This year is was beautiful.
ART QUALITY: This show was very well juried. The Art Director, Bill did a great job. It really was a lovely grouping of artists. I was impressed.
AWARDS: The guy who won Best of Show really deserved it. I was happy to see he won. I agreed with all the awards so I know the Judges worked hard to make their decisions. The award money Best of Show - $1000, First Place - $450, Second Place - $300, Third Place - $200, Merit Award - $100.
ATTENDANCE: It was stunningly terrible. I don't believe that the customer base had any trouble with the $3 admission fee... however the place was empty. It was very troubling to walk out and see the swarms of people outside the boundaries of this show. After really accessing this, (I had a lot of time because we really had nothing to do.) I feel that the Church has withdrawn their advertising and promotion of the show because they are hoping to get the overflow from Coconut Grove. The Pastor who was lovely, asked all the artists to check-in on Facebook as it was a new thing they were doing this year. I said to her "Already done". I already do that and most artists who are active on facebook do. I felt like that was the free promotion that the church had chosen over what they might have been doing in the past.
MANAGEMENT: Daisy was extraordinary. I asked some questions early on and I got a response right away. I watched her handle a few problems easily and had no problem making sure that the artists held her accountable. I think she is a very good leader and organizer for this event.
AMENITIES: Holy smokes! They had something to eat each morning and a Spaghetti Dinner (which was very very nice) and Awards Ceremony. It was incredible. The volunteers were all there, many artists and I LOVED IT. They blessed the art at the Sunday Service... which was very sweet. Everyone was very kind and accommodating to the artists. I really appreciated all their efforts. I felt very appreciated.
SALES: Many people zeroed. We barely made the booth fee and we were not alone. I felt badly for an entire row of artists that had virtually no customers around them for the entire weekend. The artists who seemed to do okay were the ones that had done the show in the past and worked their customers lists. They worked hard for their sales.
BOTTOM LINE: I bet this show was one of the greatest at one time. I am sure that it had to be fantastic, but all the customers I talked to said that they didn't know it was going on and either fell into the show OR remembered it was that weekend from years ago. No one saw it promoted anywhere. I read reviews that said - not to travel to do this show, and maybe try it if you are local. I regret I did not give those reviews more weight. They were right. Unless St. Stephens comes around to the fact that they need to promote this wonderful event they have worked so hard on, the decline will become more steep. Many said they would not come back, most of the artists from far away were very distressed that they lost a lot of money to be there. I do understand this is a fundraiser for them, but if the artists lose their butts every year, sadly it will become a shadow of itself. I hope that the people who clearly have worked so hard to overcome obstacles to make it a great event, will read this and not be upset but will come up with ways to promote the event in earnest for next year.
Craig and/or Sara, what a fantastic review. Thank you! You've told us everything we need to know when deciding whether or not to try this show.
As an aside, I gave up on Florida shows years ago. However a New England jeweler friend of mine did St Stephens last year and killed it, which for him means several thousand dollars, and could have been 5 figures. Of course, we all know that the jewelers live in a world quite different, on many levels, from those of us who work in the other mediums.