This was the first year for what promise to be an outstanding annual event. First year shows are always tough, both for the promoters/organizers and also for the artists willing to take a chance on a new event.
Originally we were going to do Rockville’s Memorial Day Festival (which was great for us last year) but when I never got the application information I contacted the town and discovered that the city had dropped the art fair component from the weekend event. (There is a really big hole in the ground where a huge building is going up that may have required they downsize the festival somewhat.)
Based on our success in this market last year, we decided to try the A-RTS Festival. The folks who do Bethesda Row put it on. They obviously have a lot of experience putting on quality events and it showed.
Rockville Town Square is a very successful mixed-use community. There are lots of restaurant, office space, and condo/apartments. This is a DC bedroom community and there is a lot of money in the area.
The show was spread over several street connected by either another street or by the town square. We were on a street that did not connect directly to any of the others with artist tents but the white canopies were clearly visible through the square. I was a little worried but it turned out not to be the “Death Valley” that was described in the post on the Sanford show.
Load-in started at 4:30 AM on Saturday morning – yuck. The street we were on was too narrow for both vans and tents so it was a dolly-in/out event. One of the show sponsors (a local grocery store) opened up their parking lot and it was a fairly short roll over level ground to our spot. Others on our street would have had a little further to go. On other streets, there was room to drive in.
It was pretty chilly in the morning but we were blessed with sun – good for the art and good for our thin-blooded Florida bodies.
The crowd was not huge over the course of the two days but it was steady. We had a decent weekend and we were pleased. The best part for us was that Staci’s canvas mounted work did well enough that we have decided to phase out what had been her low price point bread-and-butter functional décor items (more craft than art).
Breakfast was provided on Sunday morning and our block captain was great in checking regularly to see if we needed anything. Booth sitting was readily available if needed.
The negatives. There was really only one. Some of the music was too loud at our location (it was probably fine elsewhere in the show but the stage was pretty close to our booth).
The director was well aware of the issue, had the amps turned down and assured everyone in our vicinity that acts to be booked in future festivals will not be problematic. I believe her. (Having said that, I’m not sure why any music is needed other that perhaps some art exhibit friendly all-acoustic string stuff. If patrons are listening to a band, they aren’t looking at art.)
Overall we were very pleased with this first year event. We will certainly apply again next year and I would expect even bigger crowds given that it will be Year 2. At least one AFI’er got a well-deserved Best in Category ribbon. Here’s the list:
Best in Show - Samuel Yao (Decorative Fiber)
Best in Category
Ceramics - Peter Saenger
Digital - Edward Loedding
Drawing - Benjamin Frey
Decorative Fiber - John Gunther
Wearable Fiber - Kim Potter
Glass - Henry Levine
Graphics - Grant Silverstein
Jewelry - Teddi Fine
Metalwork - Ron Stinson
Mixed Media 2D - Sandhi Schimmel Gold
Mixed Media 3D - Douglas Durkee
Painting - Richard Toft
Photography - David Cieslikowski
Sculpture - Charles Strain
Wood - David O'Neil
Comments
Thanks Bill. This sounds like a good show. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.
Actually it was on AFI here: AFI Post Our first inclination was not to apply given that we were planning on the Rockville community festival at the end of May. When that went away, we thought why not give it a try. It's a great market with great potential.
This show had a lot of "under the radar" buzz going for it and I can see from your list of prizewinners that some excellent work was represented. There were some great expectations ready to be met.
Excellent report, Bill. How did you know about this show in the first place?
Glad you had a decent show Bill, sounds promising for a first year show.
I would agree with your report on the A-Arts event. Decent crowd but I would have to say it was not up to the numbers both the organizers and we had hoped for. I also had a decent weekend but that was helped by my living around the beltway in Springfield Va. and not having the added expenses of a place to stay or large gas expenses for the show. The only issue I had with the event was the load in procedure. I don't mind the early time but it was very hard for us setting up on Maryland Avenue due to having to dodge the traffic driving in to unload while trying to set everything up. We had to keep one eye on the traffic to make sure they didn't run over anything and try to set up at the same time. Since I and about 10 others had our booths at the end of Marylad Avenue an an intersecting street that was not blocked off we got there early enough Sunday morning to find on street parking place about 500 feet from our booths. Thank God for no meter feeding on Sunday.Worked great for load-out since we could carry and dolly all our stuff when breakdown was complete and avoid the traffic entering for their load-out. All in all I would do the show again next year.