Arizona shows

Bill - there's a group on here for Southwest and West Coast artists, you might want to join that, many more AZ experts who have been very helpful to me as we ventured south this winter. I will not claim to be an expert on the areas you asked about, we were based out of the Seattle area until this past July when we sold the house and became full time RV'ers, so we've been exploring the same markets you are asking about.

From a 8 year history of doing shows in the Pacific NW, unless you can get into Art in the Pearl or Art on the High Desert, I can't suggest any other shows in OR. The only show we had left on our schedule for 2013 in OR was in April, Astoria Art and Wine, however, I would never suggest that someone travel all the way from CA for that show, not sure you could cost justify it. We did well there with our jewelry but 2D had a tougher sell, still it's a long haul in April for that show, we had 1 incredible year, 2 very good years and one "ok" year at that show in the 4 years we did it, and it was one of our few options in April while living in Seattle. It's no longer on our list as I have no desire to be that far north where it's that cold and wet in April ever again in my life. We did try some new shows spring-2012, if you search on my blogs you'll find one in May of 2012 that wrapped up our OR road trip, should have gone home after the Astoria show, would have had more money in the bank, however, that will give you an idea of a couple of shows to avoid which is also useful info.

Part of our goal of becoming full time RV'ers was to avoid cold and wet shows, we've recently added CA shows to our schedule in 2012 and just now finished our first AZ show season, check the blogs and you'll see my wrap up, not quite what I was expecting and none of the shows hit the numbers we had in Mill Valley which you list on your profile as your best show ever. I can understand that, not our best show ever, but certainly in the top 10. In fact, only one of our AZ shows was better than the CA shows we tried in 2012 and 2013. My conclusion on the AZ shows was that on average we were achieving 3 days of sales to meet what I expect in a 2 day show in WA/ID or CA.

Replies

Ruth Finkenbiner December 29, 2013 at 10:00pm

Bill - there's a group on here for Southwest and West Coast artists, you might want to join that, many more AZ experts who have been very helpful to me as we ventured south this winter. I will not claim to be an expert on the areas you asked about, we were based out of the Seattle area until this past July when we sold the house and became full time RV'ers, so we've been exploring the same markets you are asking about.

From a 8 year history of doing shows in the Pacific NW, unless you can get into Art in the Pearl or Art on the High Desert, I can't suggest any other shows in OR. The only show we had left on our schedule for 2013 in OR was in April, Astoria Art and Wine, however, I would never suggest that someone travel all the way from CA for that show, not sure you could cost justify it. We did well there with our jewelry but 2D had a tougher sell, still it's a long haul in April for that show, we had 1 incredible year, 2 very good years and one "ok" year at that show in the 4 years we did it, and it was one of our few options in April while living in Seattle. It's no longer on our list as I have no desire to be that far north where it's that cold and wet in April ever again in my life. We did try some new shows spring-2012, if you search on my blogs you'll find one in May of 2012 that wrapped up our OR road trip, should have gone home after the Astoria show, would have had more money in the bank, however, that will give you an idea of a couple of shows to avoid which is also useful info.

Part of our goal of becoming full time RV'ers was to avoid cold and wet shows, we've recently added CA shows to our schedule in 2012 and just now finished our first AZ show season, check the blogs and you'll see my wrap up, not quite what I was expecting and none of the shows hit the numbers we had in Mill Valley which you list on your profile as your best show ever. I can understand that, not our best show ever, but certainly in the top 10. In fact, only one of our AZ shows was better than the CA shows we tried in 2012 and 2013. My conclusion on the AZ shows was that on average we were achieving 3 days of sales to meet what I expect in a 2 day show in WA/ID or CA.
Pauline Haas-Vaughn December 24, 2013 at 5:37pm

Hi Bill: Some of the better shows in New Mexico are run by Rio Grande...they do 3 shows (4 weekends) per year inlcuding a spring show, a holiday show and Balloon Fiesta. In AZ I would say Tempe, Tubac, Thunderbird shows. Good luck!
Connie Mettler December 23, 2013 at 12:06pm

Hi Bill. There were just a bunch of reviews of some of the Arizona shows in the blogs, written by Ruth Finkenbiner and Brian Billings.

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