Blog

1. Go over your inventory and make plans for your 2019 fairs. What do you need more of? What requests did you have from your customers that you might consider creating?
   
2. Get your vehicle ready for the miles ahead. Take it to the garage for an inspection. Take everything out and clean it. Make sure your miscellaneous supplies are sufficient: clamps, weights, bungees. Rearrange the contents for most efficient loading, unloading.
   
3. Analyze your 2018 sales to reevaluate your price points and plan work for the best ones. Then create great work that will fill any voids.
   
4. Prepare images for jurying. Analyze and review your portfolio. Share your images with a friend or a person who you respect for feedback. Post them here also for an even large audience.
   
5. Plan your 2019 show schedule. Do not apply to vanity shows that you aren't ready for, or that are so far away that your travel eats up all your profit. Do not overlook events that are close at hand where expenses will be low.
   
6. New to the business? Do not overextend by buying expensive equipment or applying for events far away until you know you can make a profit. See if you can find a local farmers market or community event now to try your display and shake out the wrinkles for selling, find out what people like about what you are creating.
   
7. Review all of your insurance. Really boring, but necessary. Investigate policies with ACT Insurance that specializes in covering artists at art fairs. How is your vehicle insurance. No vehicle/no show. If you don't have AAA insurance, buy it now. The cheapest most helpful auto help around. (They towed our van from the freeway to the Winter Park Art Festival once upon a time.)
   
8. Review your business cards. Review any handouts you share at the shows. Does their design reflect your current work? Need cool logo? or other inspiring ideas? My favorite "go to" places are Fiverr.com for quick updates to logos (cheap!) and Logonerds.com for creative help. They designed the banner at the top of this site. I used Canva.com to design that cover for the Best Art Fairs ebook there on the side of this site. 
   
9. Do your end of the year bookkeeping. Review and apply for state sales tax licenses for your upcoming festivals.
   
10. As you might imagine: do not neglect updating your website. Click here for solidly helpful tips.

What are your ideas? 

Can you spare 7 minutes of your life to help the art fair community?  Let me convince you.

Below you will find some very interesting facts about www.Artshowreviews.com?   I have spent some time evaluating the information from the website from 2018 that I would like to share with you.   Take a look.  I think you will find some very interesting facts.   Please consider giving back to the Art Fair Community with a review or two ( about 7 minutes per review).

Fact #1:  We now have 643 Art and Craft Shows listed on our site.  We have shows throughout the entire country.  

Fact #2:  We 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.  We sure would appreciate having some reviews for those states.  

Fact #3:  The state with the largest amount of shows listed on our website is Florida.  That probably isn't a big surprise.  We have 84 shows listed on our site in Florida.  Coming in send place is Illinois with 49 shows.

Fact #4:  We have 25 states with 10 or less art and craft shows listed. 

Fact #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? 

Fact #6:  We have 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?

Fact #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.

Fact #8:  Since our website went live we have had 1,155,274 page views.  That is amazing!  We know artists are using our website.  We need new reviews so that our site remains useful and needed.

Fact #9:  In the last 30 days, 12/12/18 - 1/12/19, we have had 11,964 page views.  Of course, this is a time when many artists are using our site to put the finishing touches on their show schedules. 

Fact #10:  We usually average about 381 page views per day.  In fact, we had had 111 page views by 11am today.  Artists were up early and working today. 

Fact #11:  Ninety two reviews or comments were left on ASR during 2018.  Of course, many people use our website without ever leaving a comment or writing a review.  Of the 92 comments left, 58 of those were actual show reviews using our list of questions to answer for the shows.  Those 58 reviews are more useful to artists.

Fact #12:  In the last year we had 143,568 page views.  Of those over 143 thousand visitors only 58 times did artists leave a review.  Certainly we can give back to the art community better than that.  

Fact #13:  The average show review probably takes about 7 minutes to write.  The form is right there on our website and you just fill it in.  Easy peasy!

Fact #14:  To submit a show review click on this link: 
     https://www.artshowreviews.com/review-an-art-fair.html

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

One person who visited our website left this comment:

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.

My answer back to this person was sure, we would love to add more current and up to date reviews for each show.  However, if the artists don't submit the reviews I can't add them.  Our website will be as useful to artists if everyone does their part.  It is only 7 minutes!

If anyone has experience with the following shows, would you please share your experience.

 Blowing Rock, NC

 Lake Norman, NC

 Ashville, NC

 Kings Walk in Charlotte, NC (Fall Show)

Thank You 

Eric N.

Goodmorning Art Fair Insiders, my name is Eric and I am new to outdoor art fairs. I am looking for information on 10x10 pop up tents. I need a tent that I can put up and take down by myself and I do not need the most expensive. I am looking for brand names so I can review.

I live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area and if any one within 125 miles or so has a used tent for sale let me know by email.

Thank You

Eric