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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.