Booth fees vs. Sales

Hey! Wondering what people's perspectives are on booth fees vs. how much you make at shows. We visited a large show today (400+ "artists") to scope it out. 75% of the stuff was bad jewelry, home decor, buy/sell. The booth fee for this show is fairly high ($650+), and most of the people we know that had a booth there said they were doing fairly well. I guess my question or topic of discussion is what is your opinion on these types of shows? Huge (almost too big in my opinion), questionable quality, high booth fee, but tons of people and o.k. sales. I'm still on the fence after visiting.

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  • After doing these shows for 15 years, the only way to know for sure if a show will be worth it to you is to do the show yourself.  For example, we do extremely well at Madison Wisconsin and Chicago's One of a Kind Show, but know several other artists who won't go back because they do not do well there.  In contrast, we don't do well at Cincinnati Summerfaire or Port Clinton, two other well known huge shows.  From reviews, size of the show, attendance, and any other objective means to evaluate we should do about the same at all four of these shows, but we don't.   It is a question of whether your particular work appeal to the people who attend that show and you won't know until you go.

  • I go by the "did I make more money than if this sold in a gallery" theory to rank how well I've done at a show.  I add up the booth fee, application fee and credit card fees then divide that by my gross sales.  For example if the fees add up to $250 and gross sales were $1500 then  250 / 1500 = 16.66%.  Much better than a gallery's fee of 35-50%. Since some shows are close to home and others require overnight stays I assume travel and food are just cost of doing business and average that out over all the shows I do in a year.

    Try this math for yourself... see if it works for you.

  • I am not a fan of using a booth fee multiplier to determine the value of the show. It negates the value of your time and your art. What do I mean? If a show has a fee of $25 and you sell 20 times the fee, you sold $500. For many of us that would be break even at best for a weekend.

    Another show may have a fee of $500, and you may only sell 4 times the fee. You now have $1500 in your pocket, which likely pays for your costs and some income.

    Yes, these numbers are exaggerations, but not by much. Add in your other expenses and it brings it closer to reality- maybe the $25 fee is next door and the $500 show costs you $1000 to get there...

    Another way of looking at it is that I want to do shows where I end up with, let's say, $2000 after expenses (including booth, travel, cost of goods sold...). There may be some shows with a $100 rent where I can do that and there may be some with a $1000 rent.
    • Mark, I agree with your reasoning. Success is more than doing "x" times the booth & jury fees.  When I was just starting out, about 5 years ago, sometimes the biggest value in doing a show was getting a lead on a better show than the one I was working at the moment.  It's reminiscent of making connections at a standard 9-5 job that leads you to a better position or work environment.

  • Many years, maybe 30, a writer named George Marion, proposed a theory that in his research ,a good decent show was sales should be 10 times the booth fee. At this time there were no jury fees anywhere and artisans got there information from others while sitting on the beach after the show closed. This was very accurate and you could plan on being quite close to this. Quality was high and the size of the show was not a consideration.

    Things change as time moves on. My guess today is sales of 3 to 5 times the booth fee is more common.  Quality went down in many places.  Offerings went from superb wood sculptures to "hand made" dips and seasonings.  There getting closer and closer to a flea market.

    That being said  at one of my best shows last year, selling originals only paintings, There were no other artists at this ART festival. All buy sell, $5 jewelry, jams and jellys, $3 headbands and cookies. My biggest comments were "what are you doing here" .  So I guess you just have to try a show to see how it fits you and no one else can really give you advice.  

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