It was cold in Atlanta this weekend. We went below freezing for the first time this season. This was the 2nd year for this festival. They do a fall art show, and then a spring art/craft festival in the same location. The people that orgainze this show are one of my favorite groups to work with. Patrick, the show director, is so friendly and goes out of his way to visit with everyone. Even at other art fairs he always comes by to say hello and give moral support. This show does everything they are allowed to do to make life easier for the artist. Golf carts run from the free parking to the booths all day. They offer to take patrons and their purchases back to their cars on the golf carts so people don't have to worry about how they will get larger pieces to their cars and the artists don't have to leave their booths to help get their art to peoples cars. They don't have many volunteers but the people who work the show actually WORK. They help with set up and break down. They deliver fruit, fun snacks and drinks all day and checked on each artist to see how everyone was doing. Even on the way out Betheny was at the exit handing out cookies to the artist as you drove out of the show. There was a lot more advertising for this show then the past Chastain Park shows. They had 18 minutes on the local news, commercials, billboards, great sinage, lots of different types of ads.
Booth fees were around $200 and they had about 175 artist booths. The crowd was ok, but not a ton of people. Saturdays weather in the morning didn't help. the crowd is mainly families and people walking their dogs. Booths are set up on one side of a narrow road that runs through Chastain Park. There is room behind the booths, some have more then others, depends on the terrain. About 1/2 the artist sit behind the booths and the other 1/2, like me, sitt across from the booth. On the other side of the street where I would sit I also had lots of room to store my stuff so the back of my booth was usable space for people to view art and not my junk. I had a great spot where we got some sun later in the day, which really helped since it was so cold. Artist who were in the shaded area were complaining about the cold, but as long as I was moving around I wasn't cold. I do sit, but not for more then a few minutes at a time, so the cold was preferable to me over the heat. You are able to start load in on Friday, the day before, starting at noon. The road is narrow, but since artist have all day to set up there was plenty of room to pull your car onto the side, unload then go park your car before setting up. They kept the road one way and were on people to fully unload and park your car before starting to set up. They were great about helping you unload to speed up the process. Load out also went smooth. It was day light savings, so it got dark early. Even with the narrow road, one entrance and one exit, there were few traffic jams, and when those happened the organizers were there to direct. They were strict and inforced the load out rules which was great becasue it prevents problems and headaches when people don't follow the basic load out instructions. I like to take it slow and wait till the frenzy dies down before I get my car. By the time I had my stuff broken down and off to the side it was totally clear. Sometimes getting out of a park show can take hours, but I was packed up and driving out with my cookies in just over an hour and a half after the show closed.
To the important stuff, sales. I think it was Beverly here on AFI that mentioned a game she has played at shows, have a drink after the first sale of the day or 2pm, whichever is first. I like this game so I usually play it. At this show I was set up next to a friend of mine. This game is more fun to play when you are not playing alone. As it so happens we had a liquid brunch on Saturday, it had to be noon somewhere right. Within the first 30 minutes of the show a man came up to my booth, not even in it, looked at my most expensive piece and said he would take it. He didn't ask what size it was, if I would take less, didn't need to wait for his wifes opinion or anything. Just wanted to know how I wanted to be paid, cash, check or charge, my choice. As I was handing him his receipt his wife and kids walked up and he mentioned to them that he just bought this 48"x72" painting. The wife mentioned she had a few things to show him and he told her that he had a couple other things he saw he wanted and they had only seen 1/4 of the show at this point. The rest of Saturday was pretty good for me. By the end of the day I had to get permission to drive my car to my booth so I could load up 5 large pieces I needed to deliver that night. Sunday also good, another liquid brunch because my friends booth sold a $1200 piece before noon. I sold some smaller pieces and a few larger ones on Sunday. This was definetly one of my better shows of the year, not my best, but top 5. I also have 6 appointments already scheduled to do custom pieces. I don't have the $$ for these yet so they are not closed, but usually my custom work closes. So if all the custom work closes and I attribute these to Chastain Park Art Show it may be my best show of the year. We will see.
I already knew many of the artists showing and then was able to meet many more. The jewlers that I knew did OK, made expenses. They would not come back. I didn't get a good read on how photographers did. I did see LOTS of canvases and other 2d art go buy. Not small pieces but large ones. So I wasn't the only painter selling at this show. This was a show for 2d art IMO.
One thing that I have noticed about doing this show is that I am not dog tired after it. Usually I am exhausted after a show. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday night I felt fine, and today Monday I was able to fully unload and put away everything. I even think I can go to the gym today, usually I don't the day after a show. I don't know if it was because of the ease of set up, break down, how the show was run, the liquid brunches, the cold weather or the new footstool I got for my directors chair, but it is a nice change.
I hope there will be more reviews on this show. I met more then one artist who enjoys AFI, but doesn't post, just lurkes ;) Hopefully they will let us know how they did, good or bad. It helps us all and I really believe it is good art karma for those who share there info. Everyone who showed around me was really nice and helped make the weekend more enjoyable. Did I forget anything?
