I signed up to Art Fair on the behest of my wife, who is the person to advance her talent while I am still hiding in the curtains waiting to build up my courage. I try to help as much as I am able to get her to the various shows and to set up her displays without getting in the way. Not always successful at that!
After a couple of years of thrashing about to find the best venue for her hand crafted jewelry, we have stumbled across two shows that have been very good for us, but have not had an abundance of reviews. Our first major success was Maple and Main Art Fair in Sylvania, OH. The next was the Westerville Music and Arts Festival. These are not the only fairs that we attend, but they have become among the best for us, and that is what it's all about.
What seems to make these two affairs among the most memorable is the local support pf their respective communities (CofC involved in both), and the outstanding organization of both. Set-up and tear-down easy, with the only drawbacks being exhibitors who don't understand courtesy or common sense and end up blocking all traffic of the vendors, so that what is normally easy becomes a little messy until the organizers step in. In both instances there is indoor plumbing, with Westerville restricting specific restrooms for exhibitors only. And they are AIR CONDITIONED!.
Attendance is very good at both events, with buyers outnumbering lookers by a large number. Volunteers are available when needed, not when they get around to it, and they will even help at set-up and tear-down if needed.
Sorry to be long-winded, but we haven't seen many reviews for these two juried events. I you get the chance and get accepted to either of them, join us in Ohio. You might be pleasantly surprised!
Comments
I am locale to Columbus and have done almost all the Columbus shows. I try every show at least twice before writing it off. Westerville is the only one I do not recommend. It was a decent show in its old location. Now it's a wandering mess. I'm glad you pulled out a good show. For anyone else contemplating the show, unless you have crafts, salt/pepper shakers, puzzles or inexpensive jewelry, I wouldn't suggest it.
Now, if I may, I will get on my soapbox concerning art & craft shows. I have heard a lot about exhibitors not having good shows where others have. Perhaps the fault lies with the exhibitor rather than the atendees. Because we offer jewelry, this is one area that my wife and I both focus on more than any other. So many people profess to do jewelry when in fact much of it is simply strung beads of various sizes and colors. When someone makes their own glass beads or pendants, it shows and is a refreshing difference from items that look like copies of what is fashionable in beading magazines over the last six months.
As for Westerville specifically, if you have a bad show when the attendance is around the 20,000, you are obviously not meeting THEIR expectations. Unless you can hand pick your audience, learn what they want and what touches their senses. Wasn't it Shakespear who said the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves? What the promoters for this show attempted to do - and successfully from my pov - was to prevent duplicates in exhibitors. There were numerous jewelers, photographers, and painters present, but they were vastly different from each other. I was especially taken by our neighbor who laminates his original photography onto granite slabs of various shapes and sizes. There was also a purveyor of of utilitarian and decorative wood works who left with a severly depleted inventory. The list goes on and on.
We have suffered through our share of unsuccessful shows. We won't do them again. But in most instances it is not that they are bad shows. It's that the attendees were not our audience. We move on. The shows that have been turned over their exhibitors to buy-sell hustlers will get our scorn at every turn. But shows that don't bring us the needed results we feel are not the fault of those shows, but rather ours for misreading the attendees.
Please don't take this as a personal attack on anyone, but rather as a point of view of what we have experienced ourselves, and of the attitudes we have seen from others. We find that whether or not a certain show/fair is successful for us, we always enjoy the people who attend them. We consider them our temporary friends and neighbors - the nice ones, not the ones with the 5:00 AM lawn mowing.
Connie, we are still finding our footing in the fair cirduit, and because my wife still works a 40 hr/wk job, we try to stay within the borders of Ohio for now. Unforunately we missed you when you visited with Ms. Funderberg at Maple and Main; we were two tents down.
I 100% whole-heartedly disagree about Westerville. I did it the last two years and its one of the few that I think are bad enough to give up on. Small crowds, a meandering layout, and the majority of artists are subpar. Mainly only cheap art sells, metal yard ornaments, and birdhouses. The weather was a lot better this year than it has been the last two. I had two friends who did it this year and they both came back with bad reports like mine. You just have to look at artfairsourcebook and read the many BAD BAD BAD reviews to see the trend there.
Thanks, Stephen. It is these smaller "under the radar" events that can be the backbone for an art fair career. It doesn't have to be all long drives, $500+ booth fees and high overhead. Where is Westerville?
Yes... I've been at Maple and Main for the first two years of the event. It is a well runned show but my sales are a bit lower at that show. I will still do it because Jennifer Archer (the one that runs the show) loves my Lego minifigure work...