The 2019 Review of the Art Show Reviews Website

    Once again I have spent some time evaluating the www.Artshowreviews.com website.   Take a look.  I think you will find some very interesting facts.  We know many of our artists use our Art Show Reviews website.  We know because you have also told us many times that you do use it when you are making up your schedules. 

    However, we need your help.  This website will not be as useful to you or any other artist if we don't get new show reviews.  We are averaging 1 review for every 4,000 times someone uses our website.  Artists are using us but not giving back.

    I have often asked artists to write a review for certain shows.  Many are hesitant and I have gotten the impression they think I am looking for a bad review.  I am not asking for bad reviews.  I am hoping the reviews are good ones because I hope all the shows are good shows.  However, mainly I am just looking for honest reviews that are helpful to others.

    If you want to review a show that isn't on our website, go ahead and write your review.  If I find we don't have it listed I will add it.  No problem, I am just happy you wrote a review for us.  

    Every year I get a comment that is left on our website like this one:

How come so many of the posted show reviews are from 2-5 years old?  Can't you supply some more updated review information from artists that have done the shows.  After all, many shows go through changes from year to year.

    This comment is very true.  If we don't get new reviews all we have is old reviews.  Shows do change.  Shows try to improve.  We want artists to know the show has changed for the better if it has.  Please help us.  Please consider writing a review for us.  We are just asking for about 5 minutes of your time.

Please give back to keep our website as useful as possible.

#1:  We now have 650 art shows on our website.  Last year we had 643, so we had a slight gain in the past year.

#2.  We still have 7 states that do not have any art and craft shows listed at all.  The states of Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia have never had a show review submitted for them, thus those states have not been added.  If you submit a review for those states I will add the show and get that state on our website.  Surely, someone here has done a show in one of those states.  Please write a review for us.

#3.  The state with the largest amount of shows listed on our website is Florida.  That probably isn't a big surprise.  We have 86 shows listed on our site in Florida, that is two more than the year before.  Coming in second place is Illinois with 43 shows.  Michigan has 37 shows and is in 3rd place. 

#4.   We have 24 states with 10 or less art and craft shows listed.   

#5.   We have three states with only one art or craft show listed for them.  Those states are Arkansas, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.  Anybody have a show they can submit for these states? 

#6.   We still have only one show listed for Canada.  We know they have shows up there.  Does anyone have a show and a review that they could add to that page to make it more valuable?

#7.   We actually have a European page with one show listed.  Has anyone done an European shows yet? We would love to add a couple shows to that page.

#8.   Since our website went live we have had 1,285,929 page views.  That is amazing!  We know artists are using our website.  We need new reviews so that our site remains useful and needed.

#9.   In 2019, we had roughly 130,655 page views.  

#10. In the last 30 days, 1/11/19 - 2/11/20, we have had 10,182 page views.  Of course, this is a time when many artists are using our site to put the finishing touches on their show schedules. 

#11. We usually average about 375 page views per day.  In fact, we had had 257 page views by 8 am today.  Artists were up early and working today. 

#12. We had a total of 30 reviews that were written for us during 2019.  Of course, many people use our website without ever leaving a comment or writing a review.  We also had 17 comments left. 

#13. In the last year, we had 130,655 page views.  Of those over 130 thousand visitors only 30 times did artists leave a review.  Certainly we can give back to the art community better than that.  We want artists to use our website, but we would also need you to give back.  

#14. The average show review probably takes less than 7 minutes to write.  There is a simple form is right there on our website and you just fill it in.  Easy peasy!  Simple as pie!

To submit a show review click on this link: 
https://www.artshowreviews.com/review-an-art-fair.html

To submit a show that is not on our website click this link:  
https://www.artshowreviews.com/art-show-listing-submission.html

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Comments

  • Thanks Jeff and Richard for taking the time to respond.  I have heard these comments before.  

    Richard, I do know you have written many reviews and we certainly have been thankful for your help.  I am so sorry that you have had some promoter threatening you.  That is crazy!

  • Wow, great post, Jacki! I had no idea there were so many visits to that site. Your analysis is very interesting.

    Thank you, Jeff and Richard for your comments. Jeff, last year we offered an extra point for each show review to be entered in our Pledge Drive drawing. We have some nice prizes. I like your idea of the swag though ... I might know some folks who would go for that :)

    (Oh, Richard -- I get copied on some emails that pass between disgruntled artists and show directors sometimes ... toxic!)

    What neither of you mentioned is something we've heard over the years: we have required full names of the reviewers, for all to see. We want the site to have credibility: these are real artists who actually participated in these events. Right? Make sense? We had some problems with this site when we started because people wanted to post anonymously. That wouldn't work for what we had in mind for it, transparency.

    An idea we've been talking about for some time: do you think we would get more reviews if we did let people post without their names being attached to the reviews? We could vet the reviewers to make sure they were legit, in the sense that they are artists and did do that show. We have one artist who has posted a lot of reviews who contacted me first and said he'd like to review but didn't want his name attached. He was someone I knew so I said, yes. On his reviews instead if his name it says "Anonymous, but verified." 

    Any thoughts on this?

  • 1. People are lazy, 2. Insecurity about reviewing a good show -"too many new people will apply" 3. Insecurity about reviewing a bad show - "I will get back balled by other shows.  We are all in this art business boat together and if we don't share information the bad promoters will stay in business. I write reviews of all the shows I do (and have done so for several years) in Colorado; usually 5-6 in the summer months. I also share info from the grape vine about lousy promoters. LOL last year one even sent me threatening emails and left threatening messages on my phone. Talk about a bad apple. 

  • I don’t have an answer for your dilemma, but perhaps giving reviewers “points“ for submitting show reviews. Maybe 5 points gets them a free coffee mug, 10 points a T shirt? Etc. I m sure there are some show promoters or suppliers (tent companies as an example) who would love to have some advertising on an ArtShowReviews coffee mug.
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