ARE THERE ANY GOOD ART SHOWS LEFT??

This photo is from an art show I exhibited in last Sunday - June 20th, 2010

46th Annual Art Festival - Watertown, WI

Where are all the people you might ask?  That is exactly the question that was going through most of us artists' thoughts who were in this show!  

This is the third art show I've done this season, and I have to say it was the worst attended show I've been in, in a long while!  It makes one wonder how much the show was advertised.

It is a beautiful setting in a park.  The show is held on an island, and this was the 46th year for this show.  I had done this show about 5 years ago, and the attendance was good.   We were truly amazed at the small amount of people who attended it this year.

While sales have been down to almost nothing for the 3 shows I've done so far this season, I couldn't believe the lack of people at this show.  The other shows had people, but nobody was spending any money.  This show had no people hardly and nobody buying.  Very disappointing, and I know a lot of the artists (46 approximately), probably didn't even make the booth fees.  I just barely made the booth fee of $80.00.

 

This is a photo of the bridge you drive over to get to the island.

Notice...no big crowds walking over the bridge to get into the show!  This is how it looked all day long!  What is really disappointing is that it is such a beautiful setting for an art show....artists get to pick their own spots, and spacing isn't limited to the usual 10' x 10' space.  There are a lot of nice trees and even geese and ducks strolling around.

It was obvious a lot of the same artists aren't returning to the show, as when I checked the number of new artists listed in the flyer....over half were new to the show this year!

Here are me and my sister...still smiling after only 4 sales for the whole day!

(I'm on the left and my sister is on the right)

She is not only my sister, but my best friend and buddy! 

A portion of my booth at the show.  My sister is my "display artist"!

She loves to set all the creations out, which is lucky for me because I don't have the patience for it!  I do help her, but she decides where everything looks the best.  We always get a lot of compliments on our booth.

In all honesty, I really wouldn't recommend doing this show unless you want to have a nice relaxing day sitting in the park.

My next show will be one of my very best shows...the FIREFLY ART FAIR in Wauwatosa, WI.  I can hardly wait to see what the results of this show will be.  It has always been a good one through the years, and while the sale dollars have gone down, they are still really good for me.  We shall see......!