REVIEW OF MONUMENT SQUARE ART FAIR - RACINE, WISCONSIN

My jungle display!

Butterfly Display Panel

at
Monument Square Art Fair

in Racine, WI this weekend

This past weekend June 13th and 14th I was an exhibitor in the Monument Square Art Fair in Racine, Wisconsin.

Of course, after two "beautiful" days of sunshine, Saturday, the first day of the fair, started out with clouds and showers! Luckily, my booth space was under the fair's new huge tent so that helped. My space was on the outer edge of the tent, so that when the weather finally turned sunny and nice in the afternoon, we could sit outside and catch some sun. Yippee! Sunday's weather was gorgeous, so my sister and I sat in the sun and enjoyed the weather!

I've done this show for several years now, and I'd have to say that this year's show was very disappointing as far as sales went. Many artists, including myself, hadn't even made their booth fee of $130.00 by the end of the day on Saturday. Sales were definitely way down for the majority of artists!! You can see by several of the photos I took that there weren't a whole lot of people there. A bit more on Sunday with the nice weather, but overall not a very active showing of people. Those people that were there, weren't buying....mostly strolling around and looking. The shows food vendors, however, seemed to be doing a brisk business of selling kettle corn, ice cream and other food.

Inside of the new tent

While walking around talking to many of the artists, the general thoughts were that trying to make some money doing art shows is definitely a challenge in this SLOW economy. Some artists said they were doing a lot more shows to make up for the low to lower sales at the shows they normally did, while others, like myself, were doing less shows since sales have taken such drastic cuts.

My "fairy face" pins on display

The "mermaids" on display!

(I did sell the 3 green mermaids on the left side)

My next show will be on July 11th, the 34th Annual Lake Country Art Festival, Delafield, WI in Naga-Waukee Park. It will be very interesting to see how that show goes.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL YOU ARTISTS AND CRAFTERS OUT THERE WHO ARE DOING SHOWS! SOME CAN BE GOOD AND SOME CAN BE BAD!! ONE JUST HAS TO GO WITH THE FLOW!

I, for one, am not giving up!! It would be fun to hear from other artists and crafters to see how things are going in other areas, so be sure to leave your comments.