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Promenade of Art Arlington Heights in Arlington Heights, IL

Part One (before the show)

I started writing this review before the show started. Main reason I am heading to Virginia Beach two after the show because I will be part of Boardwalk Art Show in Virginia Beach.  

My home base is Chicago, IL. I do travel out of state. As I stated I do out state shows because my type work allow me to that and I believe that the Chicago market is saturated and had become a market for the tourist (this is my humble opinion). What I mean with market for the tourist. Your work will do well if you had post card art or art work that you relate to the city or Europe, social events and social awareness. You can still do well with other type of work but as an artist you need to work harder and not depend only in the art shows.

Art Fair Artist have so many reasons why to stay close to home (family, work, amount of shows, type of work, economy, etc). It is very personal choice and is up to the artist to make that choice. Why I make this statement because if you do only shows in Florida you will be bond to a show with Howard Allan. If you only do shows in Chicago you are bond to do a show with Amy Amdur. When I am out town I had been ask if I do shows with her and answer is yes. God, artist look me up and down and sometimes people spit fire. Same thing happen when discuss her in forums.

I had observed in the last few weeks how Amdur is promoting each of her shows and you can not ask to much more from her. I was told last year that when she does a show she get permits so the stores and other vendors  do not put racks on the streets and offer special sale at the same time that shows goes and why because she does want people to be distract from the artists. That sound weird but think what happen in Ann Arbor. She gave the artists post cards and the post cards now show one of your pieces. She does that for every show that she promote. Amdur taking over some shows not adding.  I believe in near future other of the One of  a Kind Show and sale in Chicago  if you come to do a art fair not a festival in Chicago you will be bond to a show with Amy or Erin. People are begging for Erin to take more shows but she wont do more than x amount shows no matter what. I also can tell you that is not cheap to put an Art Fair in Chicago (does not count politics). Every time you do a show there is a 25 license fee add to the booth fee and some residents do not want this events in the living areas.  

So why I choose to do this show. I choose it because 57th St Art Fair or Community Section has lost his luster but it could bounce back when Obama get out of the office because of the rumors of the library coming to Hyde Park Area. The Hyde Park Area is in a transformation movement but I am sorry but big corp is taking over the area or been allow to come in. 57th is follow by Wells St and Old Town. I think for 57th St Art Fair the booth fee, lic and jury fee is 360.00 and Promenade is 495.00. Wow 135 difference so if you using this either show as a filler or pairing with Old Town 57th booth fee wise is the first choice.  Also keep in mind you can apply to Columbus and Edina. If you are local you may consider the Barrington and Millennium with Amy that go before this weekend.

The set up for Promenade is done Friday night. One group start at 6pm and another start at 8pm. You can only set up until 10:30pm. That means in my case I should be able to put the tent up but I may not be able to hang everything until Saturday morning. I already know that I will be next to a sponsor. God had Mercy of me.

Part Two the show is here:

Friday arrived I decided to take off at 4pm. Traffic is bond to get worst by the hour in Friday night. It took me 2 hours to get there and the GPS told me to get off the highway.

Set up day arrive and my starting time was 8pm. I got lucky and they let us start going in around 730pm.  I also find out that the sponsor was not  next to me. The main goal was to put up the tent up with walls. I manage to up almost everything up and just have tight up next morning. I end helping another artist I chatting I got out of there at 11:30 pm. The trip back home only took 30 minutes. Saturday came around 8am to finish the set up. I notice That I did some basic mistakes but one thing I learned was to use my lights during set up, I can always recharge the battery.

Both days of the show people show up around 10am and the traffic was great . It seems that the show was full both days. I only notice a less people around lunch time and end of the day. I think that very typical at any show. Some artist did very well and some did very bad. People was purchasing items under 100.00 for the most part and some in the 300.00 range. So to have a great show you need volume of small stuff. In my case I sold 7 small frames and lot of small print but no big ticket items (495). The sponsors and music was very low key. Bathrooms was available through different restaurants in the blocks.

The break down was very easy. You break down all the way down. Get a pass bring your car in and load. We got lucky because the weather was great and only rain over night. I did saw the candle lady but she was at the end of the row. She is very nice and yes see the point of some artists.

At the end I did not have time to look around and the show was well promote . I have a great time and easy both days. Nothing bad to post other that if you did not know is a blue collar area, There some money but people really watch how they spend the money. If you decide to the show do not expect to sale big ticket items because they do not move as much as you want to see.

Now to Virginia Beach.