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This was our first time participating in this show and we combined it with a vacation in Yosemite and had a wonderful time!  In fact this blog was delayed due to the fact that we were on vacation, I was having too much fun hiking, biking and exploring to want to log onto the computer and write a blog.   We planned this show right in the middle of vacation so we had a few days to enjoy Yosemite before the show, complete the show and explore Mammoth Lakes and continue our Yosemite explorations the week after the show.  

We had heard great things about this show from a  few artists that we knew out of the Pacific NW.  When we received our acceptance for this show we received a personal note written by the director, asking us if we really wanted to drive that far for one show.  Wow, that has never ever happened to us before.  She also did not cash the booth fee check until AFTER the event.  The paperwork indicated it would be cashed the week before, and I thought that was extremely generous to wait that long, but until after the event?  That is new to my show experience.  I really can’t say enough great things about this director, Gaye was readily available, willing to help, answer questions, rearrange booths that didn’t work due to height of the booth vs. tree branches, etc.  It was apparent that she cared about the artists, wanted us to be successful and really wanted to bring high quality arts to the Mammoth area.

The show is held in a wooded area, right next to a golf course.  You are warned at load in not to leave any food in your booth and if you are parking your RV on site over the weekend, to not be out after dark due to the bears that wander through each night.  We kind of laughed about this, but quit laughing after Saturday night when we went for a stroll after the show and as we were coming back to the trailer, my husband remarked that the "brown tree stump" on the golf course was moving.  Yep, it was a large brown bear, about 200 yards from our RV, munching on something.  So, I went to grab the camera and he wandered over to warn another artist couple who were outside of their RV, closer to the bear and preparing dinner.  They were grilling trout!  Crazy artists:)  We took a few photos and went inside the RV for the night.   The night before I thought something had “bumped” the RV, my husband thought I was imagining things. After viewing the bear he decided that maybe my imagination wasn’t quite so overactive. (BTW - no photo critique necessary, low light and I know I should have gotten my tripod out, but wanted to get the photo and get back safely inside the RV as quick as possible).

Load in was all day Friday and you were shown exactly where your booth location by the show director.  Load in for us was a little tricky due to the trees.  Since this show is held in a wooded area, many of the booths back up into the pine trees and we had to use our canopy to move a few of the branches out of the way.  We also had to maneuver carefully through the trees and rocks to set up.  As I mentioned, we had combined this trip with a vacation and had our bikes on the bike rack on top of the truck.  So, our extra tall rig was a little challenge with the trees in the show area. 

The trees also caused the layout to be a little strange in some places, but it’s not a huge show so most of the patrons didn’t seem to have a lot of difficulty navigating the show.  We did see some of the same attendees all 3 days, so it’s definitely a show where some of the patrons walk the show multiple times before making their buying decisions.

Mammoth Lakes is a popular ski destination in the winter, a popular place to have a second home for residents from the LA / Southern Cal area.  Almost all of our sales were to people who were not locals, most were the second home owners.   So, how were sales?  Well, for us Saturday was slow, very slow. We were really disappointed.  The guy across from us had a 5K day selling sculpted onyx lamps.  Sunday we more than doubled our sales from Saturday, so I was feeling a bit better about this show.  Our Monday sales were not as good as Sunday, but better than Friday.  Overall our sales for a 3 day show resembled a more typical 2 day show for us. Mixed reviews from other artists we knew, although since this was outside of our normal show area, we didn’t know near as many of the artists.  I did take the time to find James Shelago, the AFI’er who started the Southwest and Pacific Artists Group on this website.  James was having a good show, much better than we were.  Others had mixed reviews.  2 of the jewelers and a photographer we know from our Pacific NW shows all said they were down from prior years.  A few returning artists mentioned that they thought the crowds were smaller than usual, not sure if that was impacted by the Hanta Virus concerns that were coming out of Yosemite.  We had been very surprised at the lack of crowds in the park the week before Labor Day.  In fact, we felt like it was more crowded the week after the show when we resumed our vacation.

Monday morning they had a breakfast for the artists and awarded prizes.  Load out was relatively easy, we were 90% broken down when we noticed the jewelers near us getting ready to leave so my husband was able to back our truck in right when they pulled out.  We were on the road to our next campground within 70 minutes of the show ending.  Not bad for us.

Will we do this show again?  Maybe.  It’s a very long drive for us from Seattle to Mammoth Lakes, if we weren’t combining it with vacation or other shows, it’s a long drive for the sales we achieved.  We do have 2 more shows in the Bay Area, but while the map may say it’s only 300 miles from Mammoth Lakes to Mountain View, it’s a loooong drive with steep passes to climb and descend with a large travel trailer in tow.  It was an all day drive to get to the next show when we finally ended our vacation.  We will consider this show again, heard from so many artists that sales were lower and attendance was lower than last year, so it still feels like a show with a lot of potential.