Not only was The Summer of the Arts in Iowa city last weekend the best sales I have had since 2007 but the volunteers were incredible! Especially the Artist Liaison Kathy Last. On Sunday morning I went to start my car and it was dead. Of course I had waited to the last minute to head to the show and it was a 15 minute drive to the show. Luckily minutes before I had noticed that there were phone numbers printed on the back of my name tag. I quickly called the first one Kathy. After trying to figure out if there was someone that could come and get me she offered to come herself. While waiting my husband called and encouraged me to try and jump the car so I would at least have it down at the show when it came time to pack up. Well this is what Kathy did and after some stress about whether or not the car would run I made it there!Talk about helping out the artists!Oh And on Saturday one of the local restraunts came around with free hand dipped icecream bars for the artists! Boy did that set a new standard!
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  • Barbara
    That's too bad that Iowa City wasn't too good. They really should fix that layout. I have heard it is was bad for others too in that area in past years. I think it also made a big difference for me to have a corner booth because the air could move through and I had a lot of comments about my booth being cooler.
    And I agree the water bottles were a nice touch but I only had mine filled the firsts day and then never had time to leave my booth to get a refill. Hopefully they will fine tune that aspect. And again hopefully they get more volunteers
  • Carolina. It sure was fun to go out with you and everyone hopefully we can make it an annual tradition. The car trouble was crazy and it has continued on my next trip to Salina KS! Hopefully it is done as I head to Colorado.
    And that is sad to hear that they had trouble getting volunteers. Hopefully next year is better. Maybe they need to offer the Volunteers some of those ice cream bars!
    Layl
  • Hey Layl!  I heard about your trouble from Mariella.  Kathy is awesome but we did hear from her that they had trouble getting enough volunteers this year.  I hope it's not a trend since so many things are done by the volunteers.  I would hate for that show to down because of that.

    I had a good show there this year too.  It was hot and humid but at least it really didn't rain or century flood like a few years ago!  People were out and buying.  I did notice that that the area that Barbara we in did not have many people walking through which was not good.

    Iowa City is a great little city with lots of really fun place to eat and drink.  I'm a bit bias since I went to college there.  It's always a good time for me.  Especially since I get to go to my fav .... the Hamburg Inn for dinner with friends!

  • I, too, was at this show but with different experiences. I was placed in one of the out of the way spots and we did not get the good foot traffic that the other areas received. Consequently, I barely made expenses. On Saturday morning at 9:50, I went to get some of the water in the water bottle that the Festival provided (that was a nice touch). Unfortunately, the water was already gone at the artist tent and I could not wait for the new bottle to come because I needed to get back to my tent to open. Fortunately, a volunteer came around at about 2 and ran to fill up my water bottle for me. It was so hot in my spot that the water didn't last too long.

    On Sunday, I figured I would go earlier to get water and went at 9:15. But the artist tent wasn't even open yet and there was no water. No volunteers came around that day, so no water for me on that very hot day. I bought a huge bottle of water and a couple of bottles of juice for my trip home. And I never did see the chocolate bars in our area.

    I think if you do this show, make sure you are not placed in the section on the other side of the food area. Many people never came to see us. But I do love the city. Hope others had a good show like Layl.

  • Congratulations on having such a good show Layl!   Any pics of the show?
  • Where would art fairs be without the volunteers? They play such an important role in most fairs. Great to hear about this excellent one in Iowa City, Layl.

    Plus, you had great sales! Amazing - and great news.

     

    Thanks for this report.

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