Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa FL

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Gasparilla Festival of the Arts was this past weekend. Just got back home from this show. This was our second year doing the show and it was another successful year in Tampa. If you aren’t familiar with this show they give out big award money and many awards. Many of the best artist are attracted to this show for the awards. Another great thing about the show is it is pretty affordable to do compared to a lot of the other shows we do and hotel options are cheap within walking distance to the show if you do your homework.

The show is great about giving you all the info you need and if you read it everything runs smoothly. They do a great job advertising, offer patron money with ribbons and really push pre shopping on their website that does a great job featuring the artists. I also feel they do a great job about making this show about the art. This always is a big plus when we are choosing shows. The show takes place at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park at the Tampa Museum of Art. It is one of the prettiest settings for a show. The waterfront gets better and better each year.

Set up is on Thursday and Friday. Show runs Saturday 10-6 and Sunday 10-5. We prefer the set up on Thursday even though it is an extra night in the hotel. It is relaxed and then we can enjoy a day in the Tampa bay area. You show up to a staging area an hour before you are marshalled in with your group. The staging area moved this year due to construction. This is also artist parking. It is not an easy walk to the show from the new staging area but they will shuttle you in and out.

Since we stay at a hotel near the show that offers plenty of oversized parking not a big deal and I actually prefer the new location since it is across from one of my favorite restaurants in Tampa, Uleles. During that hour wait you can grab a great meal. They line you up and marshall you in. Once you are at your booth you have about 1.5 hours to set up before you need to move. I am not a fan of the marshalling in as I have mentioned before. I am not a patient person and since it only takes us 45 minutes to set up a single booth I could have been done in the time I waited from check in time to load in time. I am one of the few that feel this way. Most artists love it. They all tell me it is less stressful, which is true, but the real reason if you ask them after a couple beers is that they like the feeling of having a police escort into the show. Makes them feel special and I have to agree you feel like a big deal when you have police escort entering a show. Needless to say set up is a breeze. It is great to not have to move your vehicle. If you can’t set up in the 1.5 hours no big deal you have all the time in the world to go back. Lots of great restaurants in the area so many artists would take a break and enjoy a nice meal before finishing up.

The show only allows single booths. We normally do a double so a single is tricky for us but it really cuts costs. The booths are pretty much back to back. Some booths have more storage behind then others and the booths are not squeezed together so there is some room on the sides for most. Some booths are on the grass some on pavement. Pros and cons to each. I would prefer to be on the concrete, I like the flow, but the area can be windy. This year it was windy. Those on the pavement need to be more careful plus many of the booths on the pavement seem to get more wind from what I have heard. It is the way the park is set up.

We have always had a corner and those areas also get more wind. The middle booths are more protected. We broke out our extra weights for this show. Gusts were up to 35 mph. I highly recommend the gravity weights. They are black bags that pack up really small when not used. They take up no room and we leave them in our truck always. You can fill them with sand, gravel or water. It is usually easy to find water. The park let us fill them up no problem and we now had an extra 150 lbs on the tent on top of the 250 we already had. The tent never moved the whole weekend. I think a set costs around $100.

Many artists were going to home depot to buy buckets or rented water barrels from the show. For the money the gravity tubes are well worth it. They have already paid for themselves after having to use them a few times at different shows. Plus it eliminates the stress and time of finding extra weight when needed. Some tents did go down over night and some art was damaged because of the wind. I can’t emphasize enough to use extra weight when needed. There isn’t any shade in the park so if you want shade make some for yourself. We had sunny days every day. Sunday was too windy for an umbrella in our area. Sunscreen and hats were a must.

This show has great amenities for the artists. There is a big artist’s hospitality tent in the middle of the show. Continental breakfast, hot lunch with healthy option, even gluten free options, water all day, sweets if you want it, artist award ceremony with snacks I believe but didn’t go so not sure, lots of volunteers for booth sitting and in the tent they always had someone that could actually answer question. The judge for the show actually comes into each booth and gives you a card and introduces themselves. I am sure I am missing other things and hopefully someone can add to this.

Saturday was a beautiful day. The wind was not bad just enough to be comfortable and not hot. It was packed all day. Serious buyers right out of the gate. Our first sale was from a patron that pre shopped on the shows website and came just to see us. This was before the show started. Strong sales all day. Sykes building is the round building in the skyline at the park. They were out shopping for art since they had just redesigned their headquarters. They bought a lot of art at this show. By the end if the day Saturday almost half our inventory was gone. Since Sunday had been the better day last year we were hoping for a sellout. Plus many people told us they were looking on Saturday and coming back on Sunday to buy.

Sunday was another beautiful day but very windy. Umbrellas were not an option for shade in our area. Packed show again.The buying energy was not as strong in our area. We did have be backs but had already sold what they wanted. We did sell three more pieces making this an even better year than last year for us. Reports from other artists were across the board. I know many artists were very happy. My jeweler friends were not as happy. The patrons did not ask for discounts, what a treat. Only a few had sticker shock but they were not buyers for our work. Marge Luttrell was just down a few booths from me and it is always great to see her and her work. I am sure she can chime in on the show.

I am writing a glowing review but there are some negatives. Last year we were very close to the music stage and again this year we were right near the stage. This year they turned the speakers towards the audience instead of towards the booth so this helped. The music is still loud but it didn’t affect sales and we didn’t have a problem talking to our clients. The show does not encourage dogs but people bring them. We remembered last year dogs peeing on our stuff were a problem and it was again for many of us this year too. We are currently building a new kit to deal with dog pee instead of driving home having to smell it.

Finally breakdown. It is always going to be a challenge getting out of a park in the middle of the city. For breakdown you are assigned a load out time. Ours was 5:30, 30 minutes after the show closes. You are supposed to breakdown first before you line up. Many artists will say that they cannot break down that fast but that is not true. Many of us can. For a single booth we can be down to the ground in 15 minutes. Unfortunately many of the artists do not follow this rule and line up even though they are not broken down.

They do not allow everyone in at 5:30 that has this load out time. They let in just one or two vehicles per aisle. The rest of us that followed the rules had to wait to be let in until those that were not broke down left. This slows down everything and causes a big delay for all the later load outs. Patience is a must and possibly one beer while you wait so you can stay patient. One last thing, the police that work this show are some of the nicest, friendliest we have worked with. You leave with a smile.

Last Florida show for the year for us.  We will miss it but hopefully on to more great shows.

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  • Thanks everyone for adding to the review. It's always great to get many points of view for a show.
  • Our sales were slow, from 2 years ago down about 50%, sold lots of matted prints and originals.but no framed pieces.
    We packed everything up by 7:30 and I walked to hotel ( Barramore) for van and trailer saw the lineup was past hotel so went to room for bathroom brake and cold drink and got in line at hotel and arrived at loadin from street at exactly 8:30 our loadin time.
  • We were there as well along the sidewalk that ran down the middle of the show. We were able to stay with some old friends of ours that live in Palm Harbor so our expenses were very low for this show.  What I mean is we have known these people for a long time not that they are particularly ancient. Anyway the only negative was the load out.  We had everything on the ground, packed up and ready to go by 6:30pm.  Our load out time was 7:30. I walked over to the shuttle bus stop and waited for quite a while but it was caught in all of the gridlock of artists trying to line up to get on site.  I ended up walking back to the parking lot.  I made it to the performing arts center and hit a traffic wall.  The problem was people with later load out times trying to jump the line and get in early.  I shut off the truck and waited for something to happen.  During that time I spoke with an artists also caught up in the mess who said his tent had been broken into and a $500.00 piece stolen.  Sara waited for the 2 hours I was gone getting the truck and heard another artists say their tent had been entered but nothing other than food was taken.  I really do not see what they can do to make the load out easier given the terrain and the fact that there is one way in and out.  One solution might be to dolly out if you are near the road but that will not work for those of us in the middle of the show or near the river.  We had a good but not great show sales wise.  We sold a lot of prints from our bins but only two pieces off the walls.  It seemed like the people we saw were on a budget. Those artists near us described their sales as OK.  This show was a great experience for us.  We were very pleased to be invited and hope we can make the cut next year.  Tampa is a great city and a fun place to be.  Thanks for a great review Melanie.  All I can say is bring plenty of weights and lots of patience at load out and you will have a super time at this show. 

  • Great review Melanie, you covered all the bases. I was also there last year and did just ok, but this year I had my 2nd best show ever. I had many repeat customers and I was amazed how, even though my booth was moved ( they initially put me in full sun and I am encaustic) that many people went to the trouble to find me. Square said I had 20% repeat customers. This show goes above and beyond to be very artist friendly. Great lunches everyday, plus breakfast and a nice beer bash at night. Everyone is always checking to see if you are happy. I didn't get an award this year but I have to say that the judge took a lot of time with each of us and with as many artist's as were there...it was pretty impressive. Load out, like Melanie said, is a long drawn out process. I was in line for about an hour and a half. I guess my word to the wise is make a reservation for a Sunday night hotel because after packing it was almost 9pm and the show closed at 5. Even then, there were many tents still up and waiting to be packed. People are nice and it's a sophistcated buying crowd which is always enjoyable..... can't beat that.....loved the pics Melanie...thanks again.

  • Thank you for taking the time to write a thorough review. I always look forward to reading your posts.  It certainly adds to the value of this site.

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