Thread: Art Fairs?
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Old 09-15-2003, 10:42 PM   #62
Heidi Maiers Heidi Maiers is offline
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Joined: Jun 2003
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 549
Sharing a first show experience

I've enjoyed reading through this topic and everyone has contributed good information. I don't want to discourage you (it didn't discourage me) but I thought I'd add the experience I had doing my first Art fair show a few years ago. Because my brother is a potter and was doing this show (I hadn't seen him in years), I thought it would be a good chance to see him. It was the Tubac show in Arizona and lasted a whole 9 days (boy was I ambitious). I scheduled my vacation time from work, packed up my stuff - including my wonderful $199.99 Costco tent and stayed with some friends in Tuscon.

To make a long story short, the show actually went quite well, lots of interest and went through hundreds of brochures - but you know you are at the wrong show for making sales when every third person that passes by exclaims "Look, a REAL aritst!"

The ninth day of the show, I was sunburnt, dirty, hoarse, and ready to go home. That morning, there was an intense storm blowing through and when I arrived at my tent (or what was left of it), I knew it was time to leave. The 50mph winds had ripped through everyones tents (even though I had weights on all four corners and dangling from the center post was a 5 gallon bucket filled with rocks), knocking over all of my display tables. A year's worth of now worthless ceramic sculpture lay in pieces in a worthless pile of dirt.

Hard lesson learned - but it was a blast doing my first show marathon. Now I only do high end 2-day shows in areas that are much more sheltered and have had much greater success. Here's to hoping you do very well and enjoy the experience.
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