Ok I just did my 1st juried Art show. The weather was good and it was in Bucks County Pa an affluent place. There was a 6.00 admission fee. I shared a booth which lowered my cost basis. The first day was agonizing quite honestly. I set up, priced everything, but was not sure how it would go or if my pricing was where it should be. We were in the back end but still a lot of people came through the booth. My pieces are all wheel thrown mugs, platters, vases, tea pots, etc.. My booth mate had all hand built pieces and carved pieces very unique and some under 10.00. She had done many shows and sold a lot more than I. I went all day without selling 1 piece and that was just agonizing as hundresds of people came in and out without buying a thing I sank in spirit. There were 14 other potters there as well as about 50 other crafts. So i went looking at other potters and tried to see if my prices were to high. I think I was in the right range but started lowering everything. It did not make any real difference. I finally sold a couple marked down mugs for 15$ which were at 20$. Then an angel friend which I had not seen in 15 years surprised me with a visit and ended up buying $350.00 of pottery and took me out to dinner,ahh. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that my cost of entering were covered and I was in the plus side with another day to go. However there were many thoughts going through my mind. I get by with a little help from my friends being foremost. Questioning if my pieces were worth while since the general public were not buying. A good evaluation but somewhat painful experience. day 2 was a repeat but several other friends came and found me and also bought pieces and they bought the best pieces I had at the highest prices. At the end I netted about 600.00 for the 2 days but of course that does not include any of my time making the pottery and I slept in my van. I did sell 4 other pieces to the general public but that was not much. So I think having a unique product is very important and also having a line of cheap under 10.00 product is important. And yes like anything Relationships build business. I used face book to announce the event to friends and if it were not for that It would have been a loss of time and money. So I am going to do a open house pottery event in a few weeks locally and see how that goes. Any thoughts are welcome. Tim
You need to be a member of Art Fair Insiders to add comments!
There are a lot of artists sleeping in their cars and vans out there. The fine art/craft market is a midnight ride down a rock bottom road right now and I am just hanging on really tight. Good luck to all.
I completely understand your frustration! I'm pretty much in that situation right now as well with my jewelry. People look and comment about how beautiful and different it is then anything else they've seen, but only a small percentage of those people decide to buy it.
I just finished a show this weekend that I've been doing for three years. Each year, I've done a little better than the previous year. However, I've only at the highest made 4 times my booth space, so I know this is likely not the right kind of show for me. That said, I'm still going to give it another year as next time I plan to be set-up to accept credit/debit cards and want to see how much a difference that will make.
Just keep hanging in there. Each show you do gets you more notice and at least gets your name out there and your work seen. You never know when someone who saw your work at a previous show will decide to contact you to buy something.
Karole Bowlds > Laura HepworthNovember 29, 2011 at 10:10am
Been doing shows five years now, and the repeats, and "regret that I didn't buy at the show" calls are happening. Also, people are starting to walk up to other customers and say "That's a TwistedAngel piece isn't it?" It's a great feeling when your work gets recognized, and the customers are coming back for more. BUT, it takes time. You have to give it at minimum 3-5 years. One year is not sufficient. And you have to give it 100%. Nobody said this was a quick and easy business to be in. Even Doctors have longer internships!! So do musicians!! There is no such thing as overnight success. Hard work, and patience are key.
Tim McLaughlin > Karole BowldsNovember 29, 2011 at 11:29am
I applaud your commitment and perserverance.
Yes I agree all busniess takes time to develop but what perplexes me is this thought that one has to keep doing the same shows for consumers to start buying their work. Hey either people really like your work or not. If you come next year with the same type of work what's the difference? You are being shopped then and there with the competition on features and pricing. Now I saw another potter with great work across frome me and they did not sell much, so price points become very interesting. I am not willing to loose money so I can say I am an artist waisting my time when I could be doing many other things. Real costs have to be considered including all time involved in creation and marketing. Believe me I do not expect to make a lot of money selling pottery but I don not think losing money is acceptable. If eventualy one can expect a very good ROI then a loss for a short time is ok, but in the busniess of Arts and Crafts that seems to be unlikely. I have been creating pottery for 40 years now and I always laughed and said there is no real money to be made in it, I am right but it is harder than I thought. Sorry for the long reply and thanks for your advice. Tim
Karole Bowlds > Tim McLaughlinNovember 29, 2011 at 7:39pm
Tim,
Not necessarily doing the same shows, I do have a few(read that FEW) shows that I do return to every year, because they are my home base shows. But most of my shows are new shows, or new venues, for me. I would be absolutely BORED if I did the same shows repeatedly, all the time. Not to mention, my jewelry line changes from show to show. If I sell a piece, I do not whip out another exactly like it, to replace it. My pieces are individual, no two alike. I meant giving the Art Fair Scene itself more than one year. Building a business takes more than a year, right? THAT"S WHAT THIS IS...a business. And The Arts are always the hardest hit in these economical times of upheaval. We Artists are not selling necessities. We sell what can be termed as luxury items.
Tim - understand your comment and I don't totally agree with the idea of doing one show for 3-5 years. I know that in some markets it takes a while to build a following, we're usually willing to give a show at least 2 tries before we write if off. That being said, there are some shows that you know from the very first day that you will never do again including those where the buy/sell is much greater than what the prospectus showed or those shows that are nothing more than large neighborhood parties where art isn't even one of the top 3 things on the attendees agendas.
Having gone through this ourselves and discussed it with other artists it usually takes 3-5 years to develop a show schedule that works for you. For example, our first year we were scared by the large booth fees, did a lot of smaller community events and lost money and wasted a ton of time. So, that wasn't our market. Second year we got into a few of the tier 2 and one tier 1 show, made a little more money but still found ourselves needing to rethink the schedule. By the 3rd year we had a reasonable set of shows that we knew would give a decent return and since then we've continued to add and drop shows and adjust our schedule. Next year will be a major adjustment as we venture a little further afield so I expect another learning curve as we move into new markets.
welcome to the art show circuit ,1st almost all of us have gone through this Tweaking your booth creating a flow create your own style and I laugh I didn't think I needed it and I look back saying wow did I need it .Ask other artist if you like, if your presentation is sufficient, an artist once told me art is perception .
Of course you want to do this again! Here's the thing. The first year is your internship. You go out there, put yourself on the line and learn. It was smart to see of your prices were in line with comparable work, but did you find out if the other potters were having better sales? And, if so, how was their work compared to yours? Is there a certain color pallette that is hot this year? Is edgier design selling over classic or vice-versa. See what I mean? You need to be able to figure out what is going on. When I'm having a bad show, just rearranging the work is sometimes all it takes. Go figure. You put something 19 inches closer to the front and all of a sudden there are buyers. One thing you can't do is just wait. Be active. Rearrange, chat, engage. Sometimes raising your prices actually works better than lowering them. Maybe sharing a booth isn't the best idea? I'm not saying any of this is the case for you, just throwing out some of the "stuff" that enters into the picture. It's not just your work. If you are happy with that, tweak your display, your sales persona, etc. You can do this. It sounds like you have all the basics down. Just keep plugging. Good luck!
Tim, let us share with you our experience. We are a husband and wife team who create high end pottery and wall art, both decorative and functional. Our studio is out in the woods, on a dead end dirt road off of a dead end paved road, but only 10 minutes north of Pinehurst, NC. When we moved here and built our studio, we had no idea that we would do any on site retail business at all, and did not even build a showroom. We do art fairs all over the US, having done 4 Bridges, Boston Mills, Main Street Fort Worth, and lots of others.
An acquaintance of ours told us that they did a studio sale each year, had been doing it for 20 years, and that it now provided the majority of their annual income. So we cleaned the place up, hand made a dozen signs from recycled political yard signs we had cleaned up off of the roadways, and did $1200 in a weekend with absolutely no additional expenses!
Seeing an opportunity, we set another date 6 months later, ordered signs, advertised in our local newspaper, ordered promotional postcards which we sent out to neighbors, friends, and any previous customer from an art fair who lived with 100 miles of our studio. We also selected one expensive piece and gave it away to some one customer who came to the sale and registered. We featured a photo of that piece on our postcard, and in our advertising. We tripled the amount of sales we made, and collected 50 names for our mailing list.
We now do a fall and spring studio sale, promote it extensively, and do a very good business while sleeping in our own beds each night. We remodeled our studio to include a showroom and feel that our ongoing prospects are getting better and better.
This may not work for everyone, but we have been astonished at how well it has worked for us.
Annette Piper > Jim DaltonOctober 29, 2011 at 5:53pm
How fantastic Linda and Jim!
I live a little too far out of town for an open studio event, however I do a solo show in my local town for a couple of days in late November/early December. I've held it in an empty office next to a tyre service, in the dance studio (when its not running classes) and this year I'm doing it at the gift store. (We're talking small town here LOL). It is usually one of my best sales totals for the year (even though its aimed at locals who I've sold to for years) and people now look forward to it. As I'm only drawing on a small population base and don't want to water it down by doing it more than once a year though.
Replies
There are a lot of artists sleeping in their cars and vans out there. The fine art/craft market is a midnight ride down a rock bottom road right now and I am just hanging on really tight. Good luck to all.
I completely understand your frustration! I'm pretty much in that situation right now as well with my jewelry. People look and comment about how beautiful and different it is then anything else they've seen, but only a small percentage of those people decide to buy it.
I just finished a show this weekend that I've been doing for three years. Each year, I've done a little better than the previous year. However, I've only at the highest made 4 times my booth space, so I know this is likely not the right kind of show for me. That said, I'm still going to give it another year as next time I plan to be set-up to accept credit/debit cards and want to see how much a difference that will make.
Just keep hanging in there. Each show you do gets you more notice and at least gets your name out there and your work seen. You never know when someone who saw your work at a previous show will decide to contact you to buy something.
Been doing shows five years now, and the repeats, and "regret that I didn't buy at the show" calls are happening. Also, people are starting to walk up to other customers and say "That's a TwistedAngel piece isn't it?" It's a great feeling when your work gets recognized, and the customers are coming back for more. BUT, it takes time. You have to give it at minimum 3-5 years. One year is not sufficient. And you have to give it 100%. Nobody said this was a quick and easy business to be in. Even Doctors have longer internships!! So do musicians!! There is no such thing as overnight success. Hard work, and patience are key.
I applaud your commitment and perserverance.
Yes I agree all busniess takes time to develop but what perplexes me is this thought that one has to keep doing the same shows for consumers to start buying their work. Hey either people really like your work or not. If you come next year with the same type of work what's the difference? You are being shopped then and there with the competition on features and pricing. Now I saw another potter with great work across frome me and they did not sell much, so price points become very interesting. I am not willing to loose money so I can say I am an artist waisting my time when I could be doing many other things. Real costs have to be considered including all time involved in creation and marketing. Believe me I do not expect to make a lot of money selling pottery but I don not think losing money is acceptable. If eventualy one can expect a very good ROI then a loss for a short time is ok, but in the busniess of Arts and Crafts that seems to be unlikely. I have been creating pottery for 40 years now and I always laughed and said there is no real money to be made in it, I am right but it is harder than I thought. Sorry for the long reply and thanks for your advice. Tim
Tim,
Not necessarily doing the same shows, I do have a few(read that FEW) shows that I do return to every year, because they are my home base shows. But most of my shows are new shows, or new venues, for me. I would be absolutely BORED if I did the same shows repeatedly, all the time. Not to mention, my jewelry line changes from show to show. If I sell a piece, I do not whip out another exactly like it, to replace it. My pieces are individual, no two alike. I meant giving the Art Fair Scene itself more than one year. Building a business takes more than a year, right? THAT"S WHAT THIS IS...a business. And The Arts are always the hardest hit in these economical times of upheaval. We Artists are not selling necessities. We sell what can be termed as luxury items.
Tim - understand your comment and I don't totally agree with the idea of doing one show for 3-5 years. I know that in some markets it takes a while to build a following, we're usually willing to give a show at least 2 tries before we write if off. That being said, there are some shows that you know from the very first day that you will never do again including those where the buy/sell is much greater than what the prospectus showed or those shows that are nothing more than large neighborhood parties where art isn't even one of the top 3 things on the attendees agendas.
Having gone through this ourselves and discussed it with other artists it usually takes 3-5 years to develop a show schedule that works for you. For example, our first year we were scared by the large booth fees, did a lot of smaller community events and lost money and wasted a ton of time. So, that wasn't our market. Second year we got into a few of the tier 2 and one tier 1 show, made a little more money but still found ourselves needing to rethink the schedule. By the 3rd year we had a reasonable set of shows that we knew would give a decent return and since then we've continued to add and drop shows and adjust our schedule. Next year will be a major adjustment as we venture a little further afield so I expect another learning curve as we move into new markets.
welcome to the art show circuit ,1st almost all of us have gone through this Tweaking your booth creating a flow create your own style and I laugh I didn't think I needed it and I look back saying wow did I need it .Ask other artist if you like, if your presentation is sufficient, an artist once told me art is perception .
Tim, let us share with you our experience. We are a husband and wife team who create high end pottery and wall art, both decorative and functional. Our studio is out in the woods, on a dead end dirt road off of a dead end paved road, but only 10 minutes north of Pinehurst, NC. When we moved here and built our studio, we had no idea that we would do any on site retail business at all, and did not even build a showroom. We do art fairs all over the US, having done 4 Bridges, Boston Mills, Main Street Fort Worth, and lots of others.
An acquaintance of ours told us that they did a studio sale each year, had been doing it for 20 years, and that it now provided the majority of their annual income. So we cleaned the place up, hand made a dozen signs from recycled political yard signs we had cleaned up off of the roadways, and did $1200 in a weekend with absolutely no additional expenses!
Seeing an opportunity, we set another date 6 months later, ordered signs, advertised in our local newspaper, ordered promotional postcards which we sent out to neighbors, friends, and any previous customer from an art fair who lived with 100 miles of our studio. We also selected one expensive piece and gave it away to some one customer who came to the sale and registered. We featured a photo of that piece on our postcard, and in our advertising. We tripled the amount of sales we made, and collected 50 names for our mailing list.
We now do a fall and spring studio sale, promote it extensively, and do a very good business while sleeping in our own beds each night. We remodeled our studio to include a showroom and feel that our ongoing prospects are getting better and better.
This may not work for everyone, but we have been astonished at how well it has worked for us.
How fantastic Linda and Jim!
I live a little too far out of town for an open studio event, however I do a solo show in my local town for a couple of days in late November/early December. I've held it in an empty office next to a tyre service, in the dance studio (when its not running classes) and this year I'm doing it at the gift store. (We're talking small town here LOL). It is usually one of my best sales totals for the year (even though its aimed at locals who I've sold to for years) and people now look forward to it. As I'm only drawing on a small population base and don't want to water it down by doing it more than once a year though.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next