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Hi Friends, here is my review of this show....

The College Hills Art Fair is held on Friday and Saturday on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa.  The setting is beautiful and easily accessible to load and unload.  We were allowed to drive up to our booths for set up and tear down.  Needless to say, set up and tear down were both extremely easy.  This show has 75 artists in the usual mix of mediums and is well juried and professionally organized.  I have to say that the organizers did an excellent job.  The staff was always available and volunteers were abundant and eager to assist artists in any way possible.  It is clear that the people involved in running this show have been doing it a long time.  Overall, this is a nice show in a nice location.

This was the first year for the show being in June instead of it's usual July date.  The dreaded date change...I am not sure if it was responsible for the remainder of the bog, but you be the judge.

Friday had good weather and the show was from 11am-8pm.  If there were 2,000 people there, I would have been surprised.  I had dismal sales, a total of $200.00 for 9 hours of show.  What was selling in absolute abundance was the Kettle Korn LOL.  Anyway, in all fairness, artists around me said they were doing OK, so this may have just been a case of the area not being interested in my work.  It happens, I get it. 

Saturday was more of the same with even smaller crowds.  I spoke to some artists again who said they were doing Ok and two who said this would be their last year as they had not made enough to come back.  At that point, I would have been thrilled to just cover expenses, but alas, I ended Saturday with total sales of $75.00, bringing my total show sales to $275.00.  I did not come close to covering expenses.  The weather on Saturday was cloudy with some very light rain that started at 12:30pm and lasted on and off until about 3pm.  It wasn't enough to make much use of an umbrella, but the show promptly died once the rain started. 

Awards/Judging:  I don't usually comment on this as I never get too involved with the judging and awards process.  I feel that we have already been judged once to get in to a show and for me, that's enough.  There was much chatter going on between artists at this show about how they all felt the judging was biased and unfair.  Maybe someone will elaborate on this more, I include it in the blog only beacuse it was a serious topic of conversation among many artists.   

The show has a children's area with donated work from exhibiting artists sold to kids at less than $10.00.  Just about all of us donated to it and even the kids tent was deserted most of the time.  I donated three pieces that were all sold, but my neighbor, a jeweler actually had work returned to him at the end of the show.   

Artist treatment/amenities:  Artist treatment is superior at this show.  Volunteers are everywhere and cell numbers are given for booth sitters.  Booth sitters are exceptionally nice people, eager to help and friendly.  There was a Thursday night wine tasting and hors d'ouvre party free to artists, a buffet Friday night, free to artists, water delivered to the booth several times and they even came around at the end of the show with free boxed lunches for artists to take on the road.  They also had an artist only hospitality room with snacks, beverages and a restroom.  Very artist friendly show, they truly care and it shows.

I want to clarify that I thought this show was stellar in terms of organization, planning, layout, jury, location and artist treatment.  It is a nice event with nice staff and volunteers.  It did not deliver sales for me or crowds.  I am dissappointed that I have to take it off my list for 2014, because I went to school in Iowa and have a connection and long held affinity for this area.  It is a shame that my sales were so bad, but being an artist who is reliant on shows to pay the bills, I will not be able to go back or recommend it to others in my same situation. I know there were artists who read AFI content there, maybe they will comment on their experiences.  As I stated earlier, I did terrible in sales, others however, said they were doing ok.              

I will be cleaning out the workshop this week since I do not have to scramble to replace sold work for my next show.  I will be doing the Art Fair on The Square in Bloomington, IN on June 22.  This is a one day show (my only one day show of the year), and will review it here next weekend.  Thanks for reading....