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I saw this link  http://whatthecraft.com/how-to-pricing/   on Pinterest and started reading it.  Seems to dissect the pricing process.  Could be of some help to 'newbies'.

"Setting up an art fair scheduled should be referred to as  "The Art of the Educated Guess".  You have to decide which shows to apply to.  You have to decide which images to send.  Once you have your acceptances you have to decide which shows to actually participate in.  Each of these decisions is based on so many factors that you can never have enough information about that they are really guesses, hopefully the educated type."

See my newest blog post for more:

Amenities: Lovely location (at the University of Miami, in front of the Lowe Art Museum), with booths on grass and also on pavement.  Easy parking in a garage very near the booths.  Nice breakfast provided both days.  Friday set-up was easy and well organized, Sunday close-up was a free-for-all with artists in charge, which I think is usually the best way to handle it.  Seemed to work for everyone.

Sales: very well attended festival with lots of affluent shoppers.  Sales were, as usual, all over the chart.  We had a good show with our mid-range jewelry, in part thanks to our mailing list.  We showed here throughout the 90s, but haven't been back since 2003.  A surprising number of patrons remembered us.  Another jeweler, with work in our price range, barely covered booth fee.  Some 2-D work did very well, some did "well enough", some did terrible.  I heard "best show so far this year" and I heard "zero".  

The Important Info: a gazillion great restaurants in Coral Gables make this a show to return to.  Especially liked Las Vegas (Cuban) and Bangkok Bangkok (do I need to say Thai?) for their lunch specials.

We all know people who are enamored with photography and dream of earning a living selling their best work at art fairs. One day Geoff Coe was on assignment taking publicity photos at a local art fair. During a lull he spent some time visiting with a well-known nature photographer who was exhibiting at the show when suddenly the light went on, "I can do this too." Fast forward a few months and he was up and running.

Was he just a lucky hobbyist? No. He'd spent years as a communications editor, photography columnist and freelance photographer by the time he moved to south Florida. Interested in nature photography he soon found himself in a flatwater kayak at the break of dawn stealthily observing Florida's many species of birds at their morning routines.

He knew little about them, but he would kayak, shoot, talk to birders and research until he became expert both at the intricacies of nature photography as well as a recognized wildlife specialist.

Thousands of photos and thousands of miles later Geoff   agrees with a friend who said to him, "Gee, what a great way to earn a living."

Learn more about Geoff and see more of his photos.

If you're in Florida this month meet him January 19 & 20 in Sarasota at the Sarasota Fine Art Festival, and January 26 & 27 at the Islamorada Fine Art Expo.

June 28-September 1
Laguna Beach, California
Festival grounds on Laguna Canyon Road
125 Artists
Mail-in application deadline: January 25
In Person Jury Day - bring in your art: February 10

You are cordially invited to submit your application for the 47th annual Art-A-Fair Festival, one of three premier art shows held each summer in beautiful Laguna Beach, California.

Laguna Beach is famous for its artist's community.  But Art-A-Fair goes beyond to discover artists from around the world and in other parts of the country as well as those who live right here in Laguna.  Art-A-Fair jurists pride themselves on selecting art in all mediums for its summer Festival that will be rich in quality yet diverse in content so that every visitor to Art-A-Fair will connect with at least one artist's work. 

Visitors are invited to leisurely walk among the artists as they create.  Have a conversation and learn what inspired them or just quietly absorb the lovely garden ambiance of this artist's haven.  You'll feel artistic passion all around, and when you want to take some of that home with you, it's easy. Two and three dimensional art abounds in every medium, including oil paintings, watercolors, acrylics, drawings, photography, digital art, mixed media, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, glass and wood.

On weekends, Art-A-Fair bustles with live entertainment.  Tivoli Too!, conveniently located on the grounds at Art-A-Fair and known for its epicurean cuisine, serves daily.  Your day at Art-A-Fair wouldn't be complete without a delicious lunch or dinner and one of their famous margaritas!

Art-A-Fair is a membership organization and an artist cooperative.  As an exhibiting artist/member you will become an integral part of the show operations.  Artists work a designated six-hour work shift per week and must attend a training session for the shift.  There are three or four mandatory meetings throughout the year.

More information: www.art-a-fair.com, (949)494-4514

Application: call-to-artists page: www.art-a-fair.com/callforentries.asp
Artist prospectus:  www.art-a-fair.com/membership/docs/misc/prospectus2013.pdf
Application checklist:  www.art-a-fair.com/membership/docs/misc/2013applicationchecklist.pdf
Submission form:  www.art-a-fair.com/membership/docs/misc/2013digitalapplicationform.pdf

Contact information:
Mail CDs, paperwork and payments to: Art-A-Fair Festival, P.O.Box 547, Laguna Beach, CA 92652
Digital images may be emailed directly to: email@amazoncanvas.com

Eligibility:

• Artists may submit only their own original work
• all media are eligible for jurying and artists may jury with more than one
• three (3) works are required of each medium for jurying
• artists may jury artwork in person on jury day or by mailing in your application
• no commercial agents, dealers or manufacturers may enter

Jurying:

A jury entry will be judged  for eligibility based upon quality, originality and presentation.  Anonymity is maintained during the jury process.  The jury consists of professional fine artists and master crafts-persons.  They look for excellence in conception, execution and presentation, with the expectation of high levels of creativity and technical competence.

Fees:

A non-refundable jury fee of $40 per medium (3 physical pieces or 3 slides/digital/images) is required for each submission.  Artists with 3-dimensional work may submit up to 3 slides per each piece.

Mary Gulino

VP of Marketing, Art-A-Fair

(949)371-3375

www.MyArtistLoft.com  

Has anyone done this show and can you share any information about it?

A friend and talented artist has put together a Pinterest board with tips and how-to stuff for working in the cybermarketing art environment. Go here: http://pinterest.com/creativechicksc/art-marketing/

May 18 & 19 

Riverside, Illinois

Central Business District, Downtown
Saturday 10 to 5, Sunday 10 to 4
80 artists
Deadline:  February 1

Currently  in its eighth year, the Riverside Arts Fair is sure to please artists and  patrons alike. Join us as we celebrate two days of art in downtown  Riverside, Illinois. This fine art fair has quickly become a  community highlight. It complements and confirms the appreciation for  high quality design and materials that Riverside residents and  our neighbors find in this quaint community. 

Riverside Art Weekend – RAW – is a not-for-profit organization supported by the Village of Riverside and the Riverside Chamber of Commerce. This festival is held in the heart of this beautiful community. A multitude of fine art patrons, music, children’s art activities and more await those who choose to join us for this spec­tacular event.

Ribbon Awards: $1,100 • Attendance: 7,000+

Jury fee: $10 -- Booth fee: $285

The  Riverside Arts Fair is organized by Erin Melloy of EM Events, a well  established promoter of art shows in Chicagoland. EM Events are held in  partnership with local business organizations bringing close interaction  between each community and its' local art fair and ensuring you loyal  patrons.

Learn more and apply: www.emevents.com

For additional information please contact:
Erin Melloy - 630.536.8416 or emelloy@emevents.com

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Even more fine art fairs looking for you:www.CallsforArtists.com

Our podcast on January 17 was with Jennifer Rapp Peterson, an illustrator, greeting card entrepreneur, cartoonist, and oh yes, tech wiz! We talked about artist websites and her specific answer to "what to do", IndieMade.com, an inexpensive ($12 a month), technically unchallenging, beautiful place to host all of your website needs. 

During the podcast several people called in to say they had new sites up and running in less than 2 hours! My best advice to you this month: don't get in your van and drive 200 miles, sleep in a hotel, eat out and hope to break even, or a little ahead, at that art fair you are considering. Keep that booth fee and the other expenses in your bank account, give yourself a weekend off and build that site!

Jennifer offered a free ebook to our readers/listeners who sign up for their mailing list:

Building an Artist Website: a Place Called Home

Create more than just a website, build a website home.  A website home can provide the foundation of any art business online.  It's a place where visitors can find all of your information online.  It's an artist's best marketing tool.  Learn about what an artist needs from a website, why they need it and how they can make it happen.

Sign up for the IndieMade.com mailing list and receive the free ebook:  www.indiemade.com/newsletter

After you have your beautiful site up and running we'll come back and start talking about making money with this site. 

How did you like this podcast? Learn anything? Inspired?

Romero Britto was recently announced as the 2013 Poster Artist for this festival.  For those living under rocks or new to the business, CGAF is rated as one of the top shows in the country, consistently, year after year.

While the festival seems to be turning into more of a circus than an art festival, the quality of the art has always been top notch.  While you may not like all the art, you can recognize the talent behind it.  It is a joy to go early in the  morning before all the commercial vendors get revved up and just wander among the booths.

CGAF used to have a poster contest each year.  The winner received prize money and the unveiling of the poster is televised on the news and it is considered a big deal.  Two years ago they picked Guy Harvey who is known for his game fish.  I decried the use of someone who I had only seen on posters, drink cozies and t-shirts.  I thought it was too commercial.  Last year  I admitted that I was hard to please because last year's poster was a beautiful painting, not poster type art.  

So what is my "problem" this year?  I enjoy Britto's whimsical art.  He is all over Miami, on the sides of  building, in front of buildings, on vending machines and in more stores than I can count.  He does a lot for Miami also.  He has a store as you are walking to the main entrance of the art festival.  

Aside from the idea that the show's poster should be done by an artist actually juried into the show, this artist (as does Guy Harvey) has his worked manufactured by others.  That is the antithesis of the CGAF.  This is a show that won't allow prints.  Believe me, I tried to get prints allowed years ago when I volunteered there.  If this show has such high standards for its artists, why is it allowing commercial artists represent them with their posters?  

Verizon vendors play loud music and yell into microphones, beer vendors hawk beer as if they were at a ball game and the poster is designed by an artist who sells manufactured product all over the world.

This is the 50th year of CGAF.  The founders of the show wouldn't even recognize it.

On you schedual C, under what category to most of you report your show fee expense? )What we pay the promoter to rent a booth)The logical choices would either be Rent or lease business property,maybe advertising or other? Or am I missing a category?

July 11-14   
State College, Pennsylvania
Downtown State College & Penn State Campus
300 exhibitors
Deadline: January 25

Why should you apply to this festival?  Here is what its director, Rick Bryant, has to say:

• We're always ranked in the Top Ten in the Sunshine Artist Magazine rankings (#2 last time around!)
• We bring roughly 100,000 people to  State College over five days in July (the first day of our Festival is  Children's Day, and our artists set up at the end of the day, so that  they are there four days)
• The festival is in its 47th year and is on Penn State campus and the streets of the Borough of State College.  Actually,  we were founded by the State College Chamber of Commerce and Penn  State's College of Arts and Architecture as a "town/gown" event.
• Penn State alumni return for  "Arts Festival Alumni Weekend," a time to renew old college ties,  attend special programs, and, of course, the arts festival.  Some folks-those who are nostalgic for life before air conditioning-even opt to stay in dorms!  Artists can do that too.
• We hand out over $17,000 in prizes.  The top prize is $2,500
• Our  festival features the outdoor show, an indoor gallery exhibition, a  celebration of Italian Street Painting, performing arts on several  indoor stages and four outdoor stages, and a full day of activities for  children
• And if you're up for it, there's a 10k/5k run bright and early Sunday morning with over 500 entrants
• Notification is March 18
• Booth fee is $480 for 10x10, $960 for 10x20

For more info: www.arts-festival.com/sidewalk_sale.php

Apply: www.Zapplication.org 

Rick Bryant: email rbryant@arts-festival.com

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Find more art fairs looking for artists - new ones added daily - CallsforArtists.com

I just trying to figure if I am going a overboard.

How important is the framing of your 2d art.

I had see art with no frame, art frame with basic materials, art frame with basic conservation materials and the people like me that go all the way with museum quality framing.

What is your take. Does matter at the art shows?

Like any other year I ask myself what I can do better? The list is very long and I keep going back to improve my English. There is one thing that gave me bad taste.

When is good time to ask for advice. Let start that you do not have a group art fair artists near to you. You can not ask your regular friends about your work and presentation because they wont be honest with you.

If ask an artist at the show even when they do not have anyone in the booth is just a bad idea. So when is a good time to ask another artist for help?

Let assume you been told go more that direction with your work. Talk about your images. Print bigger and put less in the wall. Your work looks to uniform (this one is odd to me), you should take image of what people can not do (this is impossible in photography). the list keeps growing.

What I know I take pictures that I can relate and be emotional about them. I still like know if I am going in the correct direction but still when is good time to ask another artist. Even more if you like my work how I can improve my sales.  Please to do not tell me stay in your booth and dress with a tie.

Still when is good time to ask another artist?

Open Letter to Art Show Staff

Dear Art Show Personnel:

Admit it, even the best most forward thinking of you from time to time get lost down the slippery slope of what the jurying process means. Often it's presented as sort of a competition, and believe me, it sure can come across feeling that way from the artist's point of view. But it is healthier for all involved to take a broader view.

As an artist who has participated in many top shows I like to think of this process less as a competition and more as a jury's own creative project; building a beautiful array of excellence. Thus those that aren't included aren't identified as less or inferior but only as better suited to a different collection. See the difference? Better yet, feel the difference?

Respectfully,

Every Artist Who's Submitted an Application to Your Show

A Puzzling Process

The buzz is beginning to be generated for this season's shows - the includes, the excludes, the who's-ins, the who's-outs.....and I just wanted to go on record as saying I handle not being selected (AKA "Being Rejected") by a jury as simply my current body of work not being the perfect piece to the puzzle they're assembling. This frees me up to stay positive about my work and eliminate any need to hold a grudge for any reason. Heck it even lets me celebrate all who do get into a show!

Here's the weird thing about me and my art, last year I was surprised by three awards in three wonderful top notch shows - and while it felt simply amazing to have been so honored, the fact is I don't get it. How can one mindfully, competently and intentionally created body of work possibly be 'judged' as better than another? Isn't this all just a matter of taste?

Oh, sure, some artists create better booth presentations, have better slides and are superior business people when it comes to packaging their ideas, but on some pure level I just can't wrap my head around Art as a Competitive pursuit!

The Real Includes - the Genuine Prizes

Besides these prizes given to me presumably by my peers, I don't think there's any way I can plan nor prepare to repeat any of those this year. You know what winning situations I am looking forward to recreating this summer though? The ones where children came into my booth and spent their own birthday money on an actual piece of art. Yep, happened two times. I wrote about it here.

How do You Philosophize the Jurying Process?

I, and anyone who reads this post, would love to hear your thoughts on this too. I know there's a treasure trove of thoughts and ideas embodied by the various users throughout this site; I'm looking forward to reading some alternate views!

Inspired by Nels "Stepping Off the Cliffs Again"

I haven’t been at this very long
I find myself floating hither and yon
I shoot for profit
I shoot for fun
I’m glad for the prizes I’ve already won

I haven’t been at this very long
I study the masters they won’t be wrong
I like Nels
And Larry and Jim
Where would we be were it not for them

I haven’t been at this very long
Some day I’ll sing a different song
I’ll shoot for fun
I’ll make big money
I’ll sit on my porch raking in the honey

May 18 & 19
East Lansing, Michigan
East Lansing Art Festival
downtown East Lansing
200-220 Artists
Deadline: Jan. 31

#55 Sunshine Artist ranking

A non-profit event produced by Art Festival Board of Directors under the auspices of the East Lansing Arts Commission/City of East Lansing.

Established in 1964, The East Lansing Art Festival kicks off the festival season every Spring on the weekend prior to the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the beautiful streets of downtown East Lansing.  The popular Festival attracts an estimated 60,000 attendees from across the region.

East Lansing is a charming University town with a wide variety of shops, restaurants, galleries and the beautiful Michigan State University campus across the street. (Please note that the MSU UAB Spring Craft fair is not affiliated with the East Lansing Art Festival)

This long-standing non-profit event is beloved by the    community of Greater Lansing and attracts devoted art buyers from across the state.  Informally known as the "City of the Arts" the City of East Lansing welcomes the finest artists in North America to exhibit at this highly promoted event.

Here is what else you will like:

• well-educated visitors, including professional people from State government and the University
• dedicated volunteers who welcome artists with friendly smiles facilitation a smooth load in and out
• booth sitting services
• well-planned eclectic live music entertainment that enhances the art rather than distracts from it
• international flavors is a unique food court
• a festive mood as this is the kickoff of the art fair season
• affiliation with the Public TV and radio stations, bringing the right people to you

I attended the fair in 2012, see our YouTube video to get a little flavor (my first video):

East Lansing Art Fair

For more info: www.elartfest.com 

Apply : www.ZAPPlication.org  

Corinn VanWyck, Arts Program Coordinator

East Lansing Art Festival (517)319-6804

email: cvanwyck@cityofeastlansing.com

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Find more art fairs for your 2013 season: www.CallsforArtists.com