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Nels, first of all, best wishes for the season, happy holidays and all that good stuff. Next, what is with those people where you live, can you tell them to buy a vowel, what the heck is a ybor??? Really.

God bless.

July 18 & 19      
Northbrook, Illinois
Village Green Park
Presented the Northbrook Arts Commission
Sat. 10m-5pm; Sun. 10am-4pm
80 Artists
Deadline: February 2   

        
For the past five years, the Northbrook Arts Commission, in collaboration with the Northbrook Park District, has hosted the event and it has quickly developed into a revered and highly anticipated summer happening for the Village and surrounding communities such as Highland Park and a quick train ride from the City of Chicago.     

Happy Holidays from fatcatimages!

I just did this first year show this past weekend, it's in the same place that I think mainsail is (i might be wrong on that) its on bayfront drive and ne 2nd street in that little park just south of Vinoy.  it's a friday set up and load in is EASY. - yay!

Saturday had just PERFECT weather and people seemed super enthusiastic, I mostly sold small to medium things, but I sold a lot of them. It was the best show I've had in a while and I dont even think i was on the busiest side of the show.  A buddy of mine who is also a painter however was across the park in what I would have assumed to be one of the best spots and he did not do so well on saturday, (I havent spoken to him about sunday, could have been a game changer, who knows).

One of my neighbors was a local large scale sort of impressionistic painter of palm trees and stuff and she straight up killed it.  I dont know how much she did but she had to have done close to 10K or more. Most of her business she said was return customers though, because she's lived here for 17 years.  My other neighbor was a sculptor of stone and he did well also. 

I spoke to a few who did not do great, 2 were because for some reason (uncharacteristic of Paragon) there was a freakin time share tent so buyers just scurried away from that tent and as a result the artist neighbors of these obnoxious people suffered severely.  Sunday wasnt as great as Saturday, largely because the weather, it didnt rain until the afternoon, but there was an impending storm that was obvious all day. 

I totally recommend this show, and as with all Paragon shows, its really nice that Bill is walking around seeing how everyone is doing, I have never complained about anything, so I'm not sure if he solves any problems that you have, but he certainly seems to care. 

Connie Mettler visits the 2013 Buyers Market of American Craft in Philadelphia

Wishing everyone well this winter and lots of show acceptances. Meanwhile our puppies are on vacation having fun.

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

Ive been waitlisted at the big ones, bayou, woodlands.  Are there any other decent shows for painters in texas or nearby in the spring. I'm either leaving florida to go to texas in late march for bayou city if i get in, or april then to the midwest for the summer. I travel full time so I'm flexible.  I've applied to many, but havent gotten a good schedule sorted out as of yet. 
So ya, looking for some recommendations, I havent done any in texas yet.

Booth Picture Tip

I've spend the better part of the past year writing about booth pictures. The article which ran in Sunshine Artist Magazine was reproduced here and on the ZAPP web site. If you haven't read it yet, here's a link:
http://bermangraphics.com/blog/photograph-your-booth/

I just ran into an unusual situation yesterday when contacted by an artist who had hired a non jury oriented professional photographer to photograph her booth. When the shoot was happening, the photographer had refused the artist's request to give me a call to go over the images and make suggestions. He had shot the booth standing on a step stool because he thought it would make a better angle. Because of the camera height, there was too much of the front of the canopy top showing and nothing of the interior of the top. That in itself wasn't so bad. The problem was that the artist uses a Craft Hut and now the booth picture looks like the artist was hiding the fact that she is using a pop up canopy.

The only way to let the jurors know you're not using a pop up tent is to let them see the interior of the top in your booth picture.

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

2014 is almost done and so am I (both figuratively and literally). I started this write-up just sit'n in my room after a nice dinner at the Big Fat Greek Restaurant on Mill Ave. in Tempe, AZ waiting for sleep to grab me.

For a more thorough review of this show see my previous posts. http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profiles/blogs/2011-tempe-fall-festival-of-the-arts And http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profiles/blogs/tempe-az-once-again

For the most part things are the same. Although, for this show they tampered with the load in a bit. First, they moved load in up one hour from 9 to 8 PM! Yippee, at least for some folks. More on that in a bit. Secondly, they changed the parade route from entering the show site from the east side of the downtown area to loading in from the northwest end. They keep tinkering with this in order to try to make it easier or maybe it's because Tempe keeps losing land mass to ASU and development. In either case they are trying their best to make it work.

What didn't work for some folks I talked to was waiting in line from 6:30 and not getting on site for several hours after the 8 pm scheduled load in! It wasn't bad for me and a few others who dollied in from another nearby location. I talked to one Photographer/Artist who said that they didn't get in till 10:30 even though they had an 8:00 load in tag. Things generally move along unless someone parks a humongo truck in the narrow lanes and others can't get by, I don't know if this was the case with the late load-iners.

Weather this year was pretty good all things considered. No snow storms driving in, no cold fronts from CA, etc. there was a big rain storm the Wed and Thurs just before we got there but it cleared out the same afternoon just before load-in and the rest of the weekend was comfortable and mild.

Contrary to my last few reports this Sunday was the best day for my sales. Mostly, a lot of lookers the other two days. I fared about the same, maybe a little better, than last years debacle with the PAC 12 game stealing the show.

December 12, 2014  20/20 is doing their show on "Closing the Sale."  I have been looking for some info on what exactly they will be covering and I can't find anything.  I did see the brief promo for it last week at the end of their show - you know when you are trying to catch the Christmas tree before it falls over and you aren't completely listening to the TV. 

I do know it is on closing the sale but I don't know if it is about helping the customer to not be talked into making an unwanted purchase or if it is about good tips for the seller when making a sale.  Anyway, I think you may want to watch.  No matter which direction the show goes in you should learn something from it.

The show is on at 10 pm on ABC Eastern Standard time.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/

Here you go Connie, a short blog on Tempe Fall Festival of the Arts.

This was our second year participating and it truly felt like an entirely different show, different crowd, etc.  Last year we had a booth location that was close to the end of the show on a side street, plus we had to deal with the Pac 12 Championship Game on Saturday of the show and it seemed most of the attendees were not there for the art show, they were there for the game and didn’t want to buy anything that they would have to carry into the stadium.  We were less than pleased with last year’s sales but wanted to try it again, this time with a better booth location, knowing the Pac 12 Championship game was scheduled for a neutral location, etc. we went into this year’s show with higher expectations.

 This year the load in started an hour earlier than previous years, at 8 PM instead of 9 PM. We had an 8:30 time assigned, finally got to our booth around 8:50, unloaded, set up and on our way back to the RV by 10:30, much better than last year’s 12:30 AM departure from the show site.   So, Friday we started with a little more sleep, better energy and were hoping for a better start to the show than the previous year.  At the end of the show, load out was also much easier than last year, we got the truck in much sooner, loaded and headed off the show site by 1 ½ hours after the end of the show.

 Overall our sales were up 40% over last year, crowds seemed much smaller and weather was so much better.  Last year was cold, in the 50’s, which for AZ is cold.  This year we were in the 70’s all weekend, it was perfect art fair weather.  I don’t know how much of the decrease in crowd size was due to the fact that last year had a lot of attendees that were there for the Pac 12 Championship.  However, even Friday and Sunday’s crowds seemed smaller than what I remembered last year and given our location on Mill Street this year, I was expecting a larger crowd.  A basic booth (no corner, double, etc) cost $560 and for a 3 day show, sales didn’t quite meet our hopes, but were good enough that we will try the fall show again.

 The organization of this show if good, lots of volunteers, booth sitters, etc.  Hospitality booth had limited choices, was centrally located in the show so last year we never even made it to the hospitality booth, it was just too far away from our booth location.   There was an artist party Saturday evening but we elected to skip it, go home and just chill for the night.

I did get to meet other AFI’ers Pauline Haas-Vaughn and Brian Billings for the first time, got to see Mindy Kocchi, Kevin Frosch, and saw Kay Cummins & Dennis Brady several times as their booths were very close to our location.  I know others were there but I didn’t get a chance to wander much, especially on Saturday.

We’ll be back in Tempe for the Spring show in 2014 which will be our first participation in the spring show.

Loving this interactive map, a mood map of the U.S. Researchers found that even though we are called the United States, there is lots of differentiation from location to location. 

You knew that, right? You know the temperature of the Chicago crowd is not the same as the Tempe crowd? Or that Minneapolis doesn't equate to Baltimore ... and that folks always have a good time in Wisconsin? 

Find out: Oz Revisited — Part 5: What’s the Matter With Kansas?)

and: Snake Salvation: One Way to Pray in Appalachia)

and: As Temperature Rises, Empires Fall: How Heat Affects Human Behavior)

I found out why I'm able to run this site ... how about you?

Click the links above or check it out here: http://time.com/7612/americas-mood-map-an-interactive-guide-to-the-united-states-of-attitude/

3rd Annual AFI Secret Santa Gift Exchange 

It's that time of the year! The time where people from all over the world come together to do something nice for each other ...

Time is running out to join this year's merriment!

Ruth Jellema showing us her Secret Santa gift last year, not only visions of sugar plums, but hand embroidered pillowcases for those dreams

Announcing our 2014 gift exchange. Ever been in a "job" where they did the Secret Santa thing? You draw a name and then do nice things for a person secretly during the holiday season and give them a gift at the end -- all anonymously?

We are all so connected with each other in our business that this seems a good time to have some fun with each other.

Won't you join us?

Here is the calendar: 

1. Sign up to join the fun by December 10 at this link.

2. We'll be drawing the names on December 11 and sending them to you

3. Gifts shipped by December 18

4. Post photos of the gift you receive

Look at these from last year: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/santa-s-presents-arriving-show-us?commentId=2160589%3AComment%3A447096

Read about last year's gift exchange here: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profiles/blogs/putting-santa-to-bed

http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/anyone-up-for-some-holiday-fun?id=2160589%3ATopic%3A361837&page=2#comments

April and May 2015 
Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida

this show sucks, and for some bizarre reason they decided to start charging admission this year so the returning artists said attendance was down 80%.  My neighbor at the show was in my opinion a complete art show genius, she does gem stones and dumped like 5000 of them out on a table so people could pick though and she didnt get an opportunity to sit down all day she was so busy. I think it was definitely difficult for me to sell high end paintings next to 5$ stones, but shoot, she's got her **** figured out.  If i could be that busy all day and make that much money i would.  
Anyways. I dont recommend this show.  there was a howard alan ACE show in st pete same weekend and a painter friend of mine down there said he was doing well, so i chose the wrong show :/

Dont do it!