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After reading all the gloom and doom from the east coast, it is time for some good news from Colorado where all shows are not like the one in Longmont, CO discussed last week.

PHOTO: Crowd at 9:30 before show opened at 10:00

This was the 12th consecutive year that I have done this show.  Golden is the county seat for Jefferson County whose motto is “Gateway to the Rocky Mountains”.  Golden is known for the Colorado School of Mines and the Coors Brewery.  The weekend of the art show is the time that students are moving into dorms.

The show is set up for three blocks along Eleventh Street.  Food courts and music stages are at both ends of the show.  The Golden Chamber of Commerce manages the event.

This was the 25^th anniversary of the Golden Fine Arts Festival. In my opinion, the show is successful with buyers in attendance because it is run by local business people who understand EFFECTIVE advertising and marketing.

SET UP & TAKE DOWN: Both are usually easy, but this year their seemed to be less control. “Traffic Czars” keep the center lane of the street open and you can drive to your booth location. I did not have any problems as I completely unload and remove vehicle before setting up and completely knock down before bringing the Suburban in to load up.  Other artists had problems with vehicles with trailers taking up space in front of their booths for several hours both during set up and takedown, making their work difficult.  No vehicles are to come on the street until 5:30 or half an hour after the show closes, but rain at 5:00 drove patrons off the street. There were vehicles on the street at 5:10.

Most booths have space behind them but some have bushes with only a gutter width.

ATTENDANCE: The Chamber states that the attendance is upwards of 30,000.  The event is well publicized in the Denver metro area and online in advance of the show.  People show up an hour ahead of the official opening time of 10:00am and start buying, and the crowd is there until closing time at 5:00pm both days.    

AMENITIES: The artist reception is put on by the Table Mountain Inn and they don’t cut any corners.  There is great food and a selection of beers and wines.  I did not attend this year as we had dinner with family.  The Golden hotel maintained a break room and provided sack lunches for artists.  There are booth sitters, and morning coffee with pastries. There were indoor rest rooms at the Golden Hotel and porta-pots closer to the show.

SALES: My sales at this show have consistently been in the $3K-$5K range.  This year’s sales were up about $1.2K from last.  My average sale was $65 and 74 sales ranged from $3 bandanas, from the sets for napkin rings, to a $310 special order belt.  The best sellers were belts in the $45-$85 range with some $100-$200 belts, holsters and cases thrown in.  The rest were a mix of gun leathers, dog tack, horse tack and personal leather goods.  I have a bunch of special orders to do, and I discussed even more with locals who may order later (mostly gun leathers).  Comments on sales from other artists were generally positive.

     I received the 2^nd place award for Fiber this year. The last time I won an award at Golden was 2010. This was the first time at any show that the judges took time to ask me some questions about my work. Local merchants support $1800 in awards.

WEATHER: Friday afternoon during set up was clear and warm.  Saturday was hot in the 90s, but Sunday was cooler with some cloud cover.

GENERAL: Nuts and bolts are in Art Show Reviews on this site.  There was a good mix of high quality art and absolutely no buy/sell. There was also a good mix of out-of-state artists with the Colorado crowd.   Artists at other shows have commented that it is difficult to get into the Golden show. City tax of 3% is collected at the end of the show, but you pay the remaining 4.5% state and county taxes on line. The tax rate was 7.5%.

PHOTOS: Typical Saturday crowd, Crowd at 4:30 Sunday, my award.  

I did the regrettable act this weekend of leaving money in my cash box while I took a bathroom break at a show. A thief seized an opportunity and stole my cash box that was in the back of my booth. The booth sitter felt horrible and I felt like an idiot. This show, being so close to home I was a little too comfortable and let my guard down. All it takes is a minute. Fortunately, the majority of my sales were on credit.

The staff at Woodland Park reacted incredibly and got the word out to other vendors immediately. The police wrote their report and there was a volunteer that stayed with me most of the day. The community stepped in and collected donations at breakfast the next morning and presented it to me. It brought tears to my eyes reassuring me that people are good! The entire experience brought such comfort and relief knowing that our art fair community is so strong and supportive. I am so grateful to everyone who helped.

This is my first post and I am a new member to the Art Fair Insiders group. My booth neighbor at Woodland suggested I join and post because I wanted a way of thanking my fellow artist community and the staff at LAL. Thank you! -AS

Schedello! was billed by Zapplication as a premier music and art festival set in the beautiful botanical gardens of Schedel, in Elmore Ohio, about 15 minutes east of Toledo.  The back-story was that last year was their inaugural year - an ambitious one day event with music, food, art and a vintage car show was planned.  This year they dropped the car show, increased the event to two days, and made access to the art venue free (although to get to anything else there was a ticket price of $25).  Last year that day proved to be a wash out with 6 hours of driving rain and a water crisis of epic proportion for the Toledo area due to toxic levels of algae bloom in Lake Erie.  

So with the memory of last year fresh in our minds, many of the artists decided to apply and attend this revised event held this past weekend believing the potential was there for a great weekend.  The grounds are beautiful, and when the rain actually stopped last year people came out and bought from the artists. Weather issues are beyond anyone's control, as were the natural disasters like toxic algae bloom in the water supply of Toledo. Weather was warm, brilliant sunshine.  Like our hopes everything seemed bright.  We were very hopeful.  Radar showed no signs of rain or adverse weather for the weekend.  The bands began warming up, and the sound was great.... but.....

But there were few people coming into the gardens. We counted perhaps 30 people sitting in the music venue set up for 500, and continued to look up and down the aisles of the art show only seeing other artists looking back at us.  The people were not coming to Schedel.  And most of the sales were to fellow artists.

Seeing that we had all the time in the world i started an internet and social media search... what was published, what was the feedback and how much media coverage did they get?  It became painfully clear that the promoter did not do their part because there were not crowds.  There were sparse handfuls of people and very few were buying.  Many of us had not just show expenses but lodging, food, and gas...   so it was a stretch to sit there for 2 days and barely cover the zapplication jury fee and the booth fee.  We did not cover our booth fee until 1:30 on Sunday.  We really never made it to a profit level, selling only $40 on sunday.

And as my artist neighbor said "It's a tell when all of the booths are breaking down hours before the event ends."  We were to be there until 4pm, and just about everyone was there, however a majority of the booths were broken down, and the contents packed up long before and waiting for the 4pm marker to begin loading the vehicles.  I don't believe i have ever seen such behavior before.  (As a rule if you want to return to a show you abide by and respect the show agreement.  It was clear many were not planning to return.)  And there was much buzz and chatter about the disappointing low attendance, and the impact this weekend will have on the budgets of self employed artists.   

In the boredom of sitting around watching empty aisles, and yawning with fellow artists i took to the internet to see what was out there about the event...a few posts on various radio stations, and one rather sparse article in the local Port Clinton paper.  No big splash in the Toledo media.  Social media was even more sad.  twitter posted only 2 tweets advertising.  Facebook's event page had a total of 77 people invited, of which 34 said yes, they would attend.  The family we stayed with in Toledo knew nothing about the event, heard nothing on the news, newspaper or tv.  

And the show had judges who would award prizes... however it was highly apparent the two judges had planned in advance who they would reward, and visited no other booths.  When i saw they were next door i was preparing my samples and explaination of how my work is done but they flat out walked past my booth, and walked past  the beautiful art glass booth next door, never stopping, never bothering to even give a nod to any other mediums.  When they announced the awards it was no surprise... only the booths they stopped at were rewarded.  There is no grudging this, but there is such a deep sense of bias and unfairness to the rest of us that create in medium the judges don't value.  

We try to overlook silly things like biased judging, but this was one more factor heaping on a pile of problems.  The event had such potential, and we wanted it to find its stride too.  

And as we were officially breaking down and loading out a younger man stopped to chat with us wearing an official event volunteer t-shirt .  He was the first person associated with the festival to ask how it went.  But he also indicated he knew it was not a positive weekend, and he expressed his regrets that more was not done to make this event well attended, and prosperous for all.  We never saw the organizer, or the paid staff, other than seeing them driving around in a golf card, keeping a far distance from everyone.  

Are there take away lessons from events like this?  Yes, there is always a lesson to be learned.  Here are a few things we took away from Schedello!

• As an artist you can investigate and plan everything out, but have no control over weather, or the effectiveness of the promoter.
• Beautiful locations do not guarantee a well attended venue, or prosperous sales.
• Expensive booth fees and listings on Zapplication do not ensure the event is going to do well.  At one point i thought there was a correlation between cost of the booth and amount of proceeds.  I know this does not prove to be true, and often all events have potential, but cannot be predicted.
• sometimes the promoter is out for just the booth fees as revenue- and they express little interest in the success of the event event though they jury the show, and curate it well.
• Disappointment spreads very quickly through a group of artists.  The hopes that were high on Saturday morning were fading and non existent Sunday afternoon.

Will we do this event next year if they have it and jury us in?  Right now i am tending to say "Absolutely Not!" and i have anticipate this might be the thought of the majority of the artists who attended from as far away as Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky.  

Let me preface this review with the fact that I am a positive guy.  Read my reviews - my attitude is that even if you are up to your neck in horse manure, the has to be a pony in there somewhere!

So, let me begin with the positives about this show

• Venue - a beautiful waterfront view of the end of the Susquehanna River and the beginning of the Chesapeake Bay, overlooking a Marina full of expensive boats, in a park filled with huge trees.  Ok, so the grass doesn't grow so good because of all the shade, but in mid-August I will take the shade.  Add in a very nice playground to keep the kiddies occupied and you have a great spot.
• Sales - pretty decent, nothing to complain about.
• Weather - perfect.  Mid-upper 80s, low humidity, nice breeze

So why the 'debacle'?  Now we have the negatives

• Hours on the application were different from the reality
• Arrive to set up at 7 am per the instructions, promoter not present.  Artists found the programs and helped each other find the spots
• Map of the venue in the program was a couple years old, layout was different
• Because they sell alcohol, the entire venue was fenced.  The Playground was cordoned off (the seafood festival the week before doesn't do that, not necessary.  The playground is at the top of a 20+ step stairway from the huge Marina parking lot, no signs indicating that you could not access the event from the top of the stairs.  You COULD walk all the way around the other side to the entrance.  The 4' high plastic fencing did get trampled by kids pushing it down eventually, and after many many complaints on Saturday, they opened up a 3rd entrance on one end.  Should have had at a minimum 5 entrances to begin with
• 2 entrances, both in the middle on both sides of the rectangular setup.
• Porta-pots at the extreme end on one side, 100 feet OUTSIDE of the venue on the other end.  8 total. From our space, 100+ yards to the nearest.
• We requested a corner.  Offered to pay extra.  Bought a double space.  Arrive to discover we don't have a corner.  At least 3 buy/sells on a corner, and at least 3 NEW vendors with a corner (this is our second year)
• Buy/Sell.  This is supposed to be an ART fair.  At best a loosely juried Arts and Crafts show.  3 times as much Buy/Sell as the Seafood Festival last week.  A lot of crap, and then Hudson Bay Inlay.  One Double Corner with tables loaded with Chinese Jewelry.  Ok, so maybe they did put the fake murano glass pendants on the ribbon necklaces.  At least they didn't win an award.
• Speaking of awards, the judging was all over the place.  Glassblower won a blue, and deserved it.  Photography was well judged, as was Pottery.  Jewelry was a joke.  Never saw the blue ribbon, second place was mundane beaded stuff, 3rd place was sea glass (mediocre wire wrapping and pewter charms), and honorable mention was one of the best Silversmiths I have seen, using unique and artsy components.  By far the best jeweler in the show (and we are jewelry), deserved a blue ribbon and probably best of show!  Miscellaneous was silly.  Soap got an award, while one of the best Psanky(sic?) egg artists in the country got ignored.
• Management was not engaged, did not seem to care
• Promoters were non-existent at the end of the show, no traffic control, a total cluster.

There is more, but I will leave some room for others to fill in the blanks.  End of day, we made decent money, but will not return, even for free.  Easily the worse run show we have done this year, and we do 40+.  This is allegedly the 52nd year for this show, they have had plenty of time to get it right.  One bright spot - there were several great artists there, and we bought our first original piece from Mark Turner - Thanks, Mark!

This year's new creation: The flour sack Bubble Tower.

Made from cotton four sacks from the Philippines and
discarded banquet table cloths from the rental linen
industry.
The Philippines may be the last country in the world to use cotton flour sacks. 
The US switched to paper in the 1960's.

The Bubble Tower uses sacks from El Superior ,  Liberty Flour Mills,
Red Bowl, General Milling, Wooden Spoon , Pilmico ,Amigo Gold, Sampaguita,
  Bakers Choice, Montana Spring,  and other brands and designs including Cinderella, Swan and Pine Tree.
The new design is made from poly cotton flour sacks sourced from Pruiba Provisions, a charity group in the Philippines who collect the used sacks directly from bakeries in the region. They then sew aprons, bags and caps from the flour sacks. http://www.pruibaprovisions.com/  The Philippines is a top five market for U.S. wheat,importing over two million metric tons of US wheat last year.
http://www.uswheat.org/newsRelease/doc/D7FD10C14A9BE29F85257D2B00600CC7?Open

I expect this to be a popular design for county fairs, combining the features of an education exhibit
with great fun!

Cheers!
Bill Coleman

http://www.bubbletower.com/

Home of the solar powered BubbleYou® Bubble Tower -the world's biggest bubble toy® !
Eco-friendly FUNtertainment!

It was a hot for Colorado 93 degree day, sales were equally hot stating an hour before the show opened at 10:00 am. More later.

This years Stone Harbor was not a good show for me at all.  Unfortunately, it was my first show ever.  After speaking with other artists, many of them were saying sales were very slow this year.  I barely paid my booth fee.  Did not sell enough to pay for my hotel.  The parking for vendors was insufficient.  There was nothing done for the artists at all.  (i.e. name tags, water bottles...)  Don't think much advertising was done for the show because it just wasn't the usual crowd according to return vendors.  We had to submit a lot of documentation to the jury to get in, yet there were still buy/sell vendors there.  Very frustrating.  I wish I had paid closer attention to the previous vendor comments.  Seems like things have been declining for several years.  The folks putting on the show may say they want to improve it, but they aren't doing enough.  The organizers were very hard to contact.  I left three messages, never returned a call back.  This should have been a sign.

Just curious if anyone on this website has anything else to add.  

Finally, a great show to write about.

When I say "great show" I am not just talking about my results; I am talking about an overall consensus of exhibitors at a given show.  This year was a great one at Madison.

I had not been back to Madison for at least eight years.  In the 80's and 90's I was a regular there--and we always "killed them there."

I had heard from a lot of people that the 2014 show was a big disappointment, there was a lot of grumbling about low sales.

Since I didn't get into Krasl, Madison was my next pick.

On the week before Ann Arbor there are a lot of shows to pick from--State College, Corn Hill, Cain Park, Art in the Park, Plymouth,Royal Oak and of course Madison and Krasl.

One nice thing about the 2016 date for Ann Arbor, is that we will have one more day to catch a breath before setup.  Yep, setup will be on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.  A little breathing room.

This year I raced around Chicago, back from Madison, dropped off stuff, and piled more stuff in the van for Ann Arbor (lights, cords, special tables, AA is such a bitch for setup).  I barely kissed my wife hello and goodbye, and I was racing off to Ann Arbor Monday nite, with an early morn setup in the Guild show on Tuesday.  It is not fun.  Too much stress.  Next year will be a lot nicer.

So here is a little background about Madison.  Glean what insights you can.

First off, it is a Friday eve setup with the show on Sat-Sun.

Your booth is eight feet out in the street and then the last two feet are above a curb on sidewalk behind.  That is the setup for everyone.  Blame the Fire Dept.  They are good guys, they just need room to get the engines down the street in an emergency.

You want to be ready early on Sat. morn.  Show starts at 10 AM, but they are buying at 8 AM.  Reason: there is a farmers market nearby,everybody comes early.  So be pretty well setup on Friday nite.

There are a billion places to get good coffee there on Sat. morn, also plenty of eating places are open.  Otherwise stock up at the grocery store nite before.

They barely give you any room side to side unless you have a corner booth.  You got plenty room behind for an awning and storage.

It is a big college town and the center for government in the state--plenty of young people--and yikes!  they have disposable income.

They buy traditional, but they also embrace new and daring.  Anybody can sell here, especially with good work.

My black and white hand-colors of pop art figures flew off the walls here.  It has been my best show this summer--with plentiful sales in the $150-$200 range.

I saw a lot of the heavy hitters on the circuit here.  They must know something.

On one corner of the show (it is on the square surrounding the state capitol) there were two heavyweight fighters going at it--it was like Ali against Frazier.

You had photographer John Scanlan on the inside corner, and you had the legendary Emerson on the opposite side.  Emerson was throwing stabs of Asia at them, Scanlan was counter-punching on the hillsides of Burgundy.  It was an artful bloodbath, I saw numerous packages festooned with their signatures traipsing by me all show.  Scanlan did allow he had a really good show and would not have to open up the pop corn stand in Iowa on Monday.  Emerson just kept twisting his dred-locks and smiled with the contentment of inner peace and beauty.  It was an epic face-off.  And there were numerous others, besides.

It got hot, but not that hot.  We artfully dodged the expected rain.  I saw tattoos on places I had never seen before.

Traditionally, Saturday is a bigger day for sales here, rather than Sunday.  You could sell $5K on Sat. and only to $1.5 on Sunday--so don't be surprised.

Setup and teardown are very orderly, everybody gets out in no time at all.

Lastly, this is a fantastic town to wine, drink and dine in.  There is a restaurant of every nationality you can think of.  There are a million micro-brew bars here.  You could drink here ten days in a row and never get through all the good brews here.

My only regret is:  Why are there not 28 other good shows like Madison?

Later gators.

Hey Leben--it is not all gloom and doom--I just report the news as I see it and feel it.  I am really happy for you--it is always great to see success out there.

The other day I witnessed a friend of mine making a hole in one at Clearbrook in Saugatuck.  I was elated for her--plus she bought me a top shelf Makers Mark Manhatten, chilled in a tall martini glass with exquisite vermouth and bitters.  Life is good.

Three days of great weather sure does make it nice!  While sales were definitely down from last year, we still did fine.  The promoters do everything possible to make this a great event for the artists.  We had a few negatives, but they were ALL due to inconsiderate exhibitors.  Overall though, everyone was great!  Load in/out was a breeze.  

I did address buy/sell with the promoters.  They adamantly stated that they were all first time exhibitors that would not be allowed back in unless they were in the separate, commercial section at triple the cost.  There are many great artists representing a broad variety of art/craft.

This show has a big-name concert on Friday night every year.  Last year was 3 Dog Night, this year was Ronnie Milsap.  I don't know of another show that brings in a headliner to draw crowds like this. The venue is excellent.  

I know that there are artists (mostly 2D) that did not do well.  The promoter cares and wants feedback.  Lori climbed on our tailgate after we were loaded, sat with us for 20 minutes and asked "What can we do better next year"!  This is a rare event, and we love it.

I'm having a good year. My best year ever. I've read Nels' last few blog posts about Cincinnati, Columbus and Ann Arbor and I have to report the opposite impression. Not sure why my buddy, Nels had disappointing results at these three shows. His work is great. Its accessible, humorous and creative. I love it.

It seems when a negative review appears on this blog, artists who had similar experiences tend to relate their agreement in the comments. That reinforces the impression that all is gloom and doom in the art fair world. I talked to other artists who had poor sales at all three of these events, but I also talked to artists who had great sales (in spite of the bad weather we've had this summer).

The economy is improving, and that fact is reflected in my sales figures. But there are certainly other factors that contribute to my newfound success. For example, my wife moans every time I change my booth setup or add a new element to the mix. My setup has become more time consuming and complicated as a result (5 hour setup), but I argue that these little additions and improvements continue to make my exhibit more accessible and attractive to the buying public. I guess I will keep tweaking and improving the exhibit because it works and it helps.

Maybe the biggest contributor to my recent success is the work I'm now exhibiting. Over the years I've read Connie's advice to artists, that they should simplify and focus the work they exhibit and not try to show work that will appeal to all. I went for years showing a wide variety of work, hoping to appeal to everyone who enters my booth. I didn't take Connie's advice. I did OK, but not great. 

I'm a digital artist. I paint in my computer. Two years ago I started playing around with a new series that has elements of surrealism, fantasy and humor. I gradually started showing bits of that work a little at a time in the mix of conventional landscapes and marine pictures. Little by little I realized that my new work was selling more than my older, tried and true sellers. This year I made the painful decision to box up all the "Beach Stairs" and marine pictures that had been my biggest sellers over the years, and to focus only on my new "Urban Punk" series. The strategy worked and I'm selling more than ever. Sure, I guess that most of the people walking by my booth won't give it a second glance, but the ones that do, seem to love it. I finally took Connie's advice. 

Another element I should mention is price point. I'm a printmaker (working digitally), and I don't sell any really high priced items. I never did, and I have continued that strategy with a few changes. My lowest priced item is a 5x10-inch limited edition print, unframed for $24. Framed, I sell it for $56. I also show 12x24-inch prints on paper and large canvas prints ranging in size from 18x42 up to 24x54 inches. My highest priced picture is $995. I sell the big ones occasionally, but they really work better to draw people into the booth. Most of the people who love the big canvas prints wind up buying smaller prints. The majority of my sales are for the framed and unframed 5x10-inch prints. I've learned that, for me, volume works. I had my best show ever in Denver last month. I sold over 400 prints. My average sale was around $150. I've learned that people who go to art fairs don't have pockets full of money and are more likely to spend $100 or less.

Anyway, I've only been serious about this art fair business for 10-12 years (although I've done art fairs on and off for the past 40 years). I've depended on Nels vast experience in the art fair world to help me select the best shows to show in. He's been a great resource for me. But, I think he's wrong about the state of the business. Sure, there will always be ups and downs. there are lots of problems with most art fairs. But, for me, and for many of the other artists I've been talking to, things are looking up.

I'd be interested in seeing how many other artists are seeing improved sales this year.     

HDG Seafood Fest is a great show in Maryland, just of I-95 at the mouth of the Susquehanna River where the Chesapeake bay begins.  Good 'shoes', a great mix of customers.  Friday is a "Let's get our costs covered day" at most 3 day shows and this is no exception.  We certainly did that.  Pretty well organized, fairly well juried with less buy/sell than average.  A few things I did notice - 

1.  The omnipresent "Crushable Hats" folks in the A/C portion of the show?  How do these people continue to thrive in our world?  There is a commercial portion in this show, and it's triple the cost.  That's where they belong.  These crappy hats are well sold, cost less than $4.00 landed from China, and they tie a ribbon on them and SELL them for $30 - $35.  Please, promoters, stop insulting your Jury Process by allowing them to compete for Arts and Crafts dollars.  Were it not for the plethora of people selling these things, there would be more quality handmade hats at the shows!

2.  The show starts at 3pm.  You can set up anytime after 10 AM on Thursday.  How do you arrive after 2:30 to set up your booth?  I would like to see the promoter turn severely late arrivals away.  Set up by 1 PM, and plan for traffic, etc.  If you truly have an emergency, the promoter should put 4-5 volunteers on the job to get the vehicle unloaded and the booth set up pronto.  If the 'story' isn't good enough to inconvenience the promoter, it's not good enough to inconvenience everyone else.

3.  Please, fellow artists - use common sense.  there are 2 electrical boxes in our area, 50 or so feet apart.  One box completely full, the other one unused.  Enough said.

4.  Whoever backed into my tent Thursday night and broke a leg, please at the least apologize?  I have already ordered a new one from King Canopy for $20 including shipping, so I don't care about the money.  I just hate that someone would do this and not fess up.  Shame on you.

I will report back on the overall show on Monday, but the weather looks great and I cannot imagine having less than a fabulous weekend!

 
  October 30-November 1

Pojoaque Pueblo

Deadline: August 15

You are invited to apply to our event, whose mission is to present one of the finest Art Festivals in Northern New Mexico, and to provide the artists with a spectacular venue to display and sell their art.
 

Santa Fe is "Among the Top Ten International Cities for Art, HGTV" and is recognized as the Third largest Art Market in the country after New York and Los Angeles.
 

The SW Festival of the Arts and Presenting Sponsor Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino will be showcasing some of the finest artist's from North America featuring 161 exhibitors for the autumn show, located at Pojoaque Peublo, on the northern edge of Santa Fe. Buffalo Thunder has many amenities to offer artists, patrons, and tourists who attend the Festival. 

Exhibit spaces will be located in the Resort's Tewa and Pueblo indoor ballrooms. All booths have pipe & drape, 200 watts electricity, and the ballrooms are fully carpeted.

Marketing Plan:

TV, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, and Internet Advertising will be done by the Festival and Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino. Buffalo Thunder has over 90,000 contacts in their electronic database.
 

Apply: www.zapplication.org/event-info.php?ID=4153 

Email:  swfestivalofthearts@gmail.com

Questions? call:  Ron Behrmann

Phone:  (505)821-8537

Website:  www.swfestivalofthearts.com 

AUGUST 6 - 4 PM ET

When a city's largest employers pull out and the population begins to decline what do you do? Find new corporations, preserve the downtown, improve the quality of life by improving the schools, rebuild neighborhoods and focus on becoming one of the "Top 100 Arts Small Towns in the United States." 

Enter Artisphere, now in its 12th year and awarded Top 20 event out of the "100 Best" Art Shows in the country by Sunshine Artist Magazine, a Top 10 Fine Arts and Fine Craft festival by the Art Fair Sourcebook, and #3 out of 20 finalists in USA Today's 10 Best Reader's Choice Award for Best Art Festival as well as one of ArtFairCalendar.com's Best Art Fairs in 2014.

Kerry Murphy, Executive Director of Artisphere and Liz Smith, Program Director,  join us to share their experiences.

1. We'll talk about how a city in the rural South, half way between Atlanta and Charlotte, attracts the nation's top artists and why those artists apply again and again to be part of the event. 
2. How a fine art event is "sold" to the town and how they attract buyers.
3. The organizational structure of the event, recruiting working board members who expand the reach of the festival.

How you can participate:

1. Listen by clicking the Art Fair Radio logo. 
2. Post questions for the guests in the comments below
3. Call in to the show: (805) 243-1338

One of Amdur Productions best shows (in fact, Amy Amdur's initial foray into the art fair business so many years ago) is moving. The popular Port Clinton Art Festival in downtown (and fancy) Highland Park, outside of Chicago, has not been that good for the local retailers. Carolyn Hersch, business development coordinator for the City of Highland Park, said that in past years, artists booths backed up against the curb and blocked a clear view of the retail establishments ... so changes are on the way. Booths back to back down the middle of the street closer to retail and restaurants. 

What do you think? A good idea? 

Learn more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/highland-park/news/ct-hpn-festival-revamp-tl-0806-20150803-story.html

It started last year. An orthodox Greek convent contacted me about renting my Pro Panels for an event where they were auctioning religious icons that they paint. The event was to be held on a Sunday evening at an orthodox Greek Church in Pittsburgh. We made arrangements and I delivered and set up the panels a few days before the event. Then on Sunday morning I met the sisters and hung all the artwork for them. The artwork was very delicate. Hand painted icons using real gold.

At the end of the event, I arrived early and helped pack up the icons for the winners of the auction. I've always loved the physical aspect of doing art shows and this was no different, except the pressure to sell wasn't there because it wasn't my art. I actually found it to be fun.

Here's a picture of the display from last years event.

This year they contacted me for my display again. In addition, they had me photograph the icons because the photographer who had done the photography in the past was having problems with hot spots in the gold.

Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100

I have been wanting to have event promoters discuss this topic for quite some time, but never got around to posting it: Why do juried events accept STAGED (FAKE) BOOTH IMAGES for evaluation purposes and then weight them so highly?

Truth is, most on site booth set-ups do not resemble the submitted jury images. They do NOT usually show browse bins, density of merchandise marketed for sale, signage in use at the show, and that often many exhibitors move their displays outside the boundaries of their booths. They may even show prints of originals staged as originals when the original was sold long ago. Juries already accept works for evaluation which are no longer in the artist's inventory and may be 10 or more years old - not reflecting the work which the artist currently does....

Why not require CURRENT (within the last 12 months) booth shots which are actually obtained at events to show what an exhibitors set-up REALLY looks like...warts and all.

Juries will have to acknowledge that they are live shots and not optimized for being pretty. Most exhibitor booths are not pristine, nor exhibit the Spartan emptiness which juries seem to adore. They may need to weight them less heavily to reflect the reality of so many situations 

Most booths are filled with as much product as possible in order to hopefully have items which might appeal to a customer.

CAVEAT - there are some higher end painters and others who do often only display 15-20 pieces in their booths... BUT often they are set up where you cannot see the interior of the display because of the zig-zag walls and mini-maze set-up used to display their work.......... But some of these also have non-show booth jury shots that don't reflect the rather claustrophobic actual booth conditions.

An artist who submits an actual at-the-show-booth-image is often penalized because it reflects reality.

Meanwhile, there are those in the art community who have created a separate revenue stream by offering booth shot creation and post-processing services. Some of these providers appear to have insinuated themselves into the jury advisory process... which gives the appearance of perpetuating the use and preferred acceptance of fake booth photos.

While I admire these folks for their revenue creation efforts, the truth is that those who doing this as a service are enabling a dishonest practice if their clients are not going into a show and setting up their displays in the same way that the images are submitted. And the juries are not being backed up by the show personnel actually going to confirm that the booth looks like the jury image.

If shows have a preference for this Spartan display look which maximizes the booth space and not the amount of product, then they need to be more specific in their jury criteria. In any event, juries need to require actual set-up images for evaluation of perhaps they should scrap the fake booth jury image altogether.

Let the firestorm begin........ I'm wearing my leopard skin print Nomex outfit.....

Creating in our studios, loading up those vans, setting up the tents, meeting the buyers all part of the art fair business all pales beside the wonderful friends we make along the way and the real social network of the artists connecting with the rest of the art fair community and making real friends along the way.

Toni Mann, a potter from Lake Wales, FL, has been part of this group for a long time. She was the instigator and hostess for some amazing parties at the NAIA hosted conferences (I'll never forget the costume prom party held at Winter Park). 

Last year Toni was diagnosed with stage 4 colon/liver cancer and not given much of a chance. Since then her many friends have been cheering her along as she had chemotherapy and underwent surgery a few days ago.

When I saw her at Ann Arbor she couldn't wait to show me the wonderful gift created by her friends, this one of a kind necklace full of personal charms made just for her. She went through each charm and told me who made it.

Hope I remember them all: Travis Lindenbaum, Michele Levett, Barbara Umbel, Judy Goskey, Gael Silverblatt -- not doing a very good job here. Can you help me out?

Never doubt that we are fortunate to live these itinerant lives. Now that is a social network!

P.S. If you'd like to send a card: 

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Passavant, 9100 Babcock Blvd, Rm 6519, Pittsburgh Pa 15237; or leave a message on her FB page: https://www.facebook.com/toni.t.mann?fref=nf

This week is the week I'm all set to get a lot of work done on my websites. Monday morning up and ready to go. So, Connie, why aren't you doing that instead of writing this post?

1. I upgraded to Yosemite OS a few weeks ago and haven't been able to figure out how to scroll as the bar wasn't there so I couldn't update some sites, in particular CallsforArtists.com. Finally got that figured out.

2. My Mac Attack that happened last week has now COMPLETELY shut down my desktop. Black, black -- not even any more spinning beach balls.

3. Head to Mac Forums on my laptop, only to find out that I can't really sign up there because I'm not getting the verification emails.

4. Go to Charter.net to find out why. Can't get in there and my 10 log in attempts freeze that account.

5. Talk to Charter. Get into the email. Find the verification. Back to Mac Forums and it has timed out. 

6. Finally post a HELP to the forums.

7. Hyperventilating now and whining to you ... 

Have your day is better.

This issue has been dragged thru the mud many times but thought i would add to it.   Doing a show in Prescott Az. that is put on the Mountain Artist Guild.   Shows in prescott have a reputation for letting a LOT of buy/sell into their shows.  But this year I read that those doing clothing are required to have receipts for their materials.   Am hoping this will become a trend with the MAG shows but will see.  When i went to get my booth suggested that everyone supply receipts for their materials.  Will try to report after show is over to see what happens  Maybe more promoters should ask for receipts instead of just filling space with anyone,  buy/sell or the original artist or craftsperson