Blog

July 28 - August 19
Brooklyn, NY
A Gallery exhibition
Presented By: Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)
400 Artists
Deadline: May 30, Early Bird Discounted Deadline: May 9

Application Fee: Early Bird - $45/$3 each  Final Deadline: $65/$5 each add'l image
 

Testimonials:

Apply: http://bwac.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Color-Prospectus-2-25-18.pdf

More Information: http://bwac.org/
Contact Email: bwacjuriedshows@gmail.com
Phone: 718-596-2506

Mainsail was last weekend at a waterfront park in downtown St. Petersburg,FL.

This is my hometown, although I live across the bay in Ybor City.

St. Pete has blossomed.  

There are trendy restaurants and galleries everywhere.

Tall high rise condos sprout up faster than you can say “Jimminy Cricket”.

There are a lot more monied people running around town.

Some of them actually buy art.

What a concept.

I last did this show five years ago, and it was my best ever, over $7K.

Then, the last four years I got into Main Street Fort Worth.

Nobody, in my book, tops MSFW.  I have had career-monster shows there every time.  Better than St. Louis or any of the others.

So this year I got the F/U from FW, but I got Mainsail.  I figured if I pulled $4K out of it I would be happy. Plus, I was sleeping in my own bed.

Well, I almost doubled that. Holy shit!

On Saturday, the hits just kept on coming. Sold four one-of-kind pieces.  That never happens.

BTW, in case you are a newbie, I sell photography, sometimes color images of architecture, or like this year, I was selling my hand-colored black and white images of celebrity icons.

I cleaned up.  My price range is $30-$700.

One of my top sellers was a local image.  I will digress.

One of my best friends who I have known since Little League day’s lives in a condo across from the Vinoy Hotel.

I do not know how this wide space happened, read on, below.

The Vinoy is across the road from Mainsail.

Anyways, me and my buddy get together about every month at his place.

He has a fabulous wine collection, 2,000 bottles plus, all good ones.

Usually we will drink a number of them and then walk down to a nearby wine bar or a restaurant.

So this one time we are drinking reds at the Madonna Wine Bar in downtown.

As we walked out of the door, it emptied into an alley, I happened to look down at the ground.

I then spotted this cast iron sewer cover below. Emblazoned upon it was a pelican and the city seal of St. Petersburg.

Although I had been drinking some healthy reds, I had the presence of mind to whip out my digital Nikon and capture a few images.

Later, long after wine hangover, I made a black and white photo of it.  I then handcolored it and called it, “Saint Pete at my feet.”

Well, I sold $1000 of that shot at Mainsail.

I will give you some show details.

Setup is on Friday, you can usually drive close to your space.

One big negative of this show is that the park has no grass.  We all had to setup on dirt.

You would think the City of St. Petersburg could do better.

Also, they have a curious waitlist policy.  Up to a week before the show they will fill from the list. After that they do not fill.

There were more than 25 empty spaces at the show. On a row where my jeweler friends were, there was nine empty spaces in a row.  That sucks royal canalwater.

Other than that, the show has really great artists from all over.

My neighbor, a craft artist from North Carolina, sold a goodly number of his handmade lamps which are in the high $800 range.

My other neighbor almost sold out with his hand-turned wooden bowls.

A great well known painter at the top of my row sold at least four giant abstracts.

For every great success, there were equal failures.

A lot of artists I talked to shrugged their shoulders when I asked how they had done.

It was a very hot, humid weekend and the crowd was a little thinner than usual.

Trouble is, Mainsail is no longer the only art show held downtown anymore. Could be a little of the “Naples effect” starting to show here as well.

But, if I can’t be in Fort Worth then Mainsail will do very nicely.

It was a great feeling to leave the show Sunday night with a full wallet.

Hello All

I have been accepted to this show. I have never shown at this event. I am trying to find current reviews from artist who have. Everything I find is years old. I am feeling this is not a very good show from a selling standpoint. Seems like most complain about low sales. Just wondering if anyone would like to help me decide.

Thanks

Joe

This Show was the second weekend in March, same time as Vero.

Do not waste your time with this show, it is a loser for people trying to sell art.

A little background.

Apollo Beach is about 30 minutes South of my Ybor house. I have used it as a bailout show whenever I do not get in Vero.

I have done it for more than 10 years and could usually grind out $1500-$2000 and I slept in my own bed.

This year I did $600 on Saturday and zero on Sunday.I do not know why the lettering turned slanted. Just go with it.

One big problem for this show is that they do not know how to target the more affluent communities that are adjacent to the show.

Instead we get people from very poor areas South and they have little disposable income.

The committee who runs this show is the local Arts Alliance. It used to be run by the Chamber of Commerce.

in my humble opinion, the Chamber did a far better job.

The Alliance is clueless about how to run a good show.

Stay away from this one it is not worth the time if you are trying to sell good art.

This Show was on the last full weekend in March.

They finally got their act together and limited the show to 300 artists. That meant nobody was stuck on an outer loop where half the attendees never walked.

We had excellent cool weather, decent crowds, about 15000 total.

Most artists made 6-10x their booth fees.

This is a three day show with no evening hours.

You can setup either on Wed. Or Thursday before the show.

At teardown, you can scrum with the majority to teardown Sunday night, or still better, you can come in early Monday morn and teardown.  Which is always my choice.  It is mellow and I can park right by my booth.  I was out in one hour.

Houston is a major city with at least 50 corporations that have their international headquarters there.

You have millions who live there, but the show is lucky to pull in 15,000 attendees.

They could do better.  This is one of the major faults about this show. Too bad they will not take a lesson from the Main Street Fort Worth who brings in close to a half million attendance.

Trouble is Bayou City gets very little corporate backing for their show.  Ft. Worth gets oodles.

Also, FW charges no gate fee.

Bayou City (BC) charges a $17 gate fee. Also there is no local parking, so most people have to pay to take bus shuttle to and from the show.  They have shuttle stops at nearby shopping centers.

Sunday nite I waited to take free shuttle back to my nearby hotel. I was tearing down next morn.

So I got to talk to the supervisor who controlled all the parking.

He estimated about 1200 people took the shuttle on Friday, about 3000 on both Saturday and Sunday.

He also observed that about 1500 more Ubered their way to and from the show. He says more people are Ubering each year.

He said that if this had been a food related event rather than an art event attendance would be triple.

Houston loves their food a lot more than art.

So that explains why turnout is small.

The Show has a new director and she is sincere and trying to make the show better.

Get corporate funding so you can drop the gate fee to a lower number.

Another interesting trend I noticed.

They got hit with a bad hurricane last fall, and people got insurance money but they were not spending it in big numbers.

I remember after Hurricane Andrew hit a Miami, the insurance money was flowing at all the spring shows.  Most artists had monster Coconut Grove’s sales.

Houston is no Miami—too bad.

Meanwhile let me tell you about the show.

Everybody has storage space in the rear of the booth. Side to side, you are lucky if you can get your hand in to zipper up.

A lot of artists have double booths at BC.

The Show is on a totally  paved circular path in an inner city park—Memorial Park.

My neighbor on Friday who did fused glass hit the jackpot when a customer came in and bought her biggest piece for $8500.  She was ecstatic.

I sold steadily all three days, but most my sales came out of the bins.  I sold very few framed pieces which were in the $150-$500 range.

I did not see a lot of big pieces go by.  I think craft artists made better big sales there as compared to 2-D.

Most artists were happy and made $4-$10,000 at this show.

I shared a room with Vic Edwards at the show hotel about a mile away. We got it for about $100 per day with a great free breakfest everyday plus a free bus shuttle ride to and from the show.

To top it off, there was a fantastic sushi restaurant in the adjacent hotel parking lot and we ate there every night.

This Show is Worth doing

Thank you Nels for confirming exactly what I feared would happen.  Glad  didn't drive from Ft. lauderdale for the show.

Art Attack Ft. Myers 2 weeks ago was a bad enough experience.  

June 30 - July 1

Contact: Curtis Beck   info@cwbevents.com  916-936-9393

Have done this show since the early eighties.

Used to be a strong $3-4K show.

Not anymore, can barely break a grand.

This is a huge college town teeming with young professionals.

You would think they would support the arts.  They do not.

Crafts have a better chance here.

I saw very few 2-D pieces go by this weekend.

You have too many artists for too few buyers.

Do not waste your time unless you live close to it.