Last year I was thrilled to participate in some of the "bigger" shows, like AA Street Original, Madison on the Square, St. James Court, Krasl, among others. I'm still a newbie, and the booth fees and travel expenses blew me away, but I wanted the exposure. Financially I did okay, and made about 5 to 8 times my booth fees. But the travel and long hours were exhausting and I felt I needed to step back and consider whether it was all really worth it or not.
This year I've pulled back and have been going to smallish local area shows within one or two hours drive from home. These are advertised as "art fairs", run by local art guilds or ladies' groups or community organizations. There are jewelers and painters as well as dip mix and "stuff on a stick". The booth fees run from $50 to $100. No hotel stay, not much gas, I take a lunch, set-up and tear-down are easy, the show staff is thrilled to have a "real artist" with a very nice display and sometimes give me an award which means no booth fee next year if I'll return.
Patrons walk around, don't see much they want, and come back to me to make what may be their only purchase at the show. Good work still sells and I find that people do appreciate quality and want to buy from local artists. My daughter calls it the "Big Fish in a Small Puddle" phenomenon. I've been making an average of $2000 per show, with $100-$150 investment, and I'm home for supper. Plus, many of these customers will make the trek to my holiday open house, which has grown steadily every year for four years.
For me the "big shows" just don't make sense anymore. I think I'll be investing in growing my local market, rather than putting money into the pockets of show organizers and driving myself to exhaustion to try and get recognition. My dog thinks I'm famous. That's enough for me. :)
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Thanks for the report, I'll look forward to reading more about it. I tried to get into a show in the Lansdale pa area but was to late, it is next weekend.
Could be so, Brian. The attendance is a deciding factor, and not something you can always predict.
I am observing that art fairs in general are becoming a free entertainment event for patrons to stroll around for an hour and get a snack. They are just there to look, and we are the exhibit. No intention of buying anything. Can't blame folks for partaking of a cheap afternoon diversion in this economy, though. I do the same.
I'm doing the direct opposite. I started out doing the smaller local shows and now moving to the larger shows. Not sure where you live but here in Phoenix, the small shows SUCK!! I understand the downfalls of bigger shows but at least they get people there, it's all a numbers game. My experience with these small shows is that the people in charge have no clue and very little people attend. Most the people that do show are friends and family members of the artists. Most the time I'm lucky to get 50 people to walk by. There is a monthly art walk in Phoenix that gets thousands of people but it's mostly teenagers and hippies trying to pass medical marijuana. Unless you sell inscents or graffiti art your probably not going to do well. Small shows must be very different in other states.
I meant to say 1 - 2 hours away from the mountains....
I have given up on larger fairs too. I don't break even with the high fees, traveling, motel etc. I am lucky enough to live about 12 hours away from the Ga. and NC mountains where tourist always want to take home souviners (sp). I do stay in small hotels which are inexpensive, take my own food and meet great people. This year I have been lucky enough to get on the list of resorts than invite 10 artists at a time each season to set up in the resort. Sales have been much better this year.
Paul, I looked up "Wisconsin art craft shows" and found the WI arts board, which maintains a list of all WI shows. When I find one I'm interested in by name, I look it up individually. I look for blog posts about it, scan what type of artists were listed in the previous year, and even look for images to get an idea about whether it looked busy or dead. One caveat I have is to never set up shop at any show that ends in " festival"....( apple fest, pumpkin fest, cheese fest, haha!). Festival goers are looking for corn dogs and other things-on-a-stick; not $200 bowls. Of course there always exceptions.
How does one find a list of these smaller shows ? I am near Philly so smaller shows in that area and even southern New Jersey would be great.
Thanks, Carol, for thd kind comment. Kay, I'm in southern Wisconsin, about 1.5 hours from Chicago. I find my local community is very supportive and surprisingly willing to spend their hard-earned dollars on small to medium priced items. My biggest ticket items worth several hundred dollars or more have sold at major shows...I know that my local patrons wouldn't be able to do that. So...maybe planning for two big shows during spring and fall would be a wise idea to market my specialty work. Without wearing me out or breaking the bank.
I'll have to do a ton of research and choose them wisely. AFI is a great resource for that.
I've been doing show s for over 20 years and for most of them up until 2008 I made a decent living doing 20 +/- shows a year-- some "big" promoter shows, "art" festivals etc, some smaller more local shows. Since 2008 my net profit has all but evaporated at the "bigger" shows with heftier booth fees and hundreds of miles of travel with attendant hotel fees, gasoline and wear and tear on both of us and our vehicle. We have decided to eliminate many of our "bigger" shows because while our gross profits are larger at these shows our net take is significantly less than that which we make at more local less expensive shows. At least until the economy improves we will be doing fewer large shows.
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