I'm from Florida. Has anyone ever done a cross country trip for an art show (like Florida to Washington, Oregon, CA or vice-versa)??? What have you learned from your experience? What would you change? Did you drive or were you able to pack and ship all your junk and fly to the show?
Did you try to add a minor, mid-grade show on the way there (or back) just for kicks? I imagine adding the show AFTER the primary "major" show is preferable because one would not want to be left short with art (if one should be so lucky! :-)
Your experiences and advice would be very helpful. Thank you.
Replies
I live in Virginia Beach - and I just got home from doing a show in Denver. This was my second year doing this show - and I've learned a lot!
I create mandalas - and I had a booth in the Celebration Metaphysical Fair - which happens twice a year. This year I did very, very well - best show I've ever had! I find the metaphysical crowd really loves and understands mandalas.
Last year I flew out and then used the post office and fed ex to ship all my art. I rented gridwall when I arrived. That option was too expensive - and the grid display was incomplete.
This year I boxed up my graphic display system gridwall - and shipped all my art and booth set up via Pilot truck shipping. I was amazed at how low the price was! Only $200 one way to ship 3 very large boxes with the grid, and then 6 big boxes of art and supplies. I got a great airfare on SW - and rented a cheap car in Denver when I arrived. I had all the boxes shipped directly to the Fair location (Denver Merchandise Mart) - and then shipped it all back from the same location after.
What a breeze!!! The Merchandise Mart delivered everything directly to my booth - all I had to do is to unpack and set up! When all was said and done, even though there were travel and shipping expenses - I still did well.
My point in posting - is that it would have been far more expensive for me to drive out with my display and art. I'm so glad I shipped via truck and then flew out. Of course, it would be much trickier if it had been an outdoor show, and I couldn't ship directly to the show location.
Kathy
Wow, great advice, Kathy. I am sure that the saved time and tedious nature of long cross country driving stretches make the ship and fly option very favorable if it is feasible. I also like what others suggested which involves adding other auxiliary shows to and from the focal show (basically making it a multi-weekend festival TOUR). I just worry about not having enough art should earlier shows do better than expected (of course, that would be a WONDERFUL "problem" to have).
Either way, the universal constant seems to be "plan plan plan" and good organization. :-)
Hi-- I have often gone cross country to shows. I'm on CA and have done ACC in Baltimore for the last 4 years, and a show in Boston, Orlando, and the OOAK show in Chicago. These are all indoor shows--I don't know yet how to acquire a canopy for an outdoor show from a distance. I fly to them and ship my booth display by FED X ground and pack my work in 2 very large hard-sided suitcases that can be checked. Shipping usually costs me about 200 each way. I have knock-down pro-panels and collapsible pedestals. I ship to a full service FED X office which will hold my boxes for free for 5 days till pick up--I google them before I go to find one close o the show. When I get there, I get a Zip CAR. which rents for aprox. 12.00/hr, pick them up, and drop them off at the show. I usually get my booth into about 9-10 boxes. After the show, I get Zip Car again and drop them off-many Fed X-s are open late on Sundays or early on Mondays. It is a lot of work, but so is driving to a show...packing boxes for shipping gets to be as routine as packing the car. You just have to adjust the way you think so that you're alays figuring out how to pack stuff to ship. And remember to pack extra packing tape!
Wow, sounds like a lot of work as well. It sounds like, fortunately for you, that your art is usually more compact, smaller scale, than larger framed pieces. But it is pretty amazing that you can do this anyway.
I suppose if I do a cross-country show I might as well try to take advantage of the drive and plan a mini sight-seeing tour, an opportunity for adding more photographs to my portfolio, and possibly adding auxiliary festivals on the way back to supplement the trip.
But hearing all these stories and your experiences certainly is helpful. I look forward to more.
I have been thinking about cross country shows, but only if I would get into a very highly rated show such as La Quinta or Art in the Pearl in Portland. I do photography and my idea is to ship minimal work for display and take portfolio books to order from. Anybody tried this? I have only recently been getting into top rated shows such as Fort Worth and Cherry Creek and have found it has been very worthwhile to do the extra travel for shows such as these. I guess there are very few of this caliber though. It's easy for me to justify 2 extra days travel and an extra $500 - $1000 in expenses if the shows are worth it. I'm tired of traveling to "local shows" near Georgia where I break even or only make a few hundred dollars.
I've driven halfway across the country a couple of times. No west coast shows, though. With travel costs so high these days, it's becoming less cost effective to travel long distances for any but the highest level shows, and even those are iffy, if you haven't done it before.
When I travel more than a day from home (500+ miles) I will try to back up shows on a circular or out-and-back route. It may pay, and it may not. For example, I put Fairfax, VA the week after Dogwood instead of driving 12 hours to Atlanta, and then 12 hours back. It didn't pan out, for me. But I had the opportunity to layover with friends and get some good photographs in the three intervening days. While that's not a quantifiable value, it does make some sense if you can do some work along the way.
Thanks for haring, Jim. Now that you brought them up, what is your opinion on Dogwood and Fairfax?
Dogwood good. Fairfax not so good.