I was invited to three one-day shows lately. All were for Sundays in December. Two of the venues I've done before, one with some success and the other not so much. The other one I have not done before. I opted to do one of the ones I had done last year, turned down the other less successful one, and decided not to even try the new one. The following is a quick analysis of why I chose one and rejected the others.
Most potters/craft artists who make sales regularly will do at least a couple of two- or three-day wholesale or retail shows each year. These start on Friday afternoon and end Sunday late afternoon. Those who do these tell me they are their bigger moneymaking shows of the year. A retail show will bring you immediate money and feedback, with varying levels of success. A wholesale show may enable you to gain new customers that ask you to write up sales for the rest of the year.
It cuts deeply into my income potential, that I have Friday evening and Saturday put aside for the Sabbath for, oh, the rest of my life. Since I don't do business on Sabbath, and while I can't know by exactly how much, the income I'm missing is without question pretty significant. I have needed to find ways to compensate for not doing the weekend wholesale or retail shows. I've been known to wake up at night and lie there thinking about this as I toss and turn. I'm working on the problem constantly.
So I may do a one-day show now and then, in addition to the other roster of ways I make money & sell my work: I have the occasional drop-in customers to my studio gallery, web sales on my site, and getting work into shops or galleries the old fashioned, legwork/phone/email way. I have students 6 months a year and offer date night for couple or friends in the winter.
Back to those one-day shows... The ones I might do on Sundays are, by contrast with the weekend ones, a lot of work for an abbreviated benefit. Having done a number of these, I understand that the amount of work I must put in preparing for what is often only 4 or 5 hours is disproportionately labor intensive and possibly will not bring in much in sales. You might argue that the show fee is usually fairly small, less than $100 and/or 15% of sales to the venue, say, as opposed to perhaps $1000 or more to rent a booth location at a big weekend show. But sales are much, much smaller.
An intangible: I consider the one-day show a way to test my work and my setup in a community venue, and see how my pieces and my prices 'play in Peoria'. But since I want to make back my show fee, sell at least a few pieces besides, and still feel I came away with enough to pay for all my time, effort, and let's not forget, get paid for the art I sold, I choose as carefully as I can.
The right choice of this one-day type of venue is where other people will be selling their handmade art and jewelry. If I can find handmade wearables, hand-fashioned fine woodwork, artist-fabricated glass or metal, or interesting mixed media or other constructions or sculpture, that's a clear indication of a show with potential. If the show is well publicized, motivated customers come in the door, expecting quality work. Pointing out the obvious, you want motivated customers. I may get on-the-spot sales AND some people may ask to place an order for items they have in mind and don't see on my table and shelves. If the price points of my sales pay me for the craftsmanship/artistry I bring to my pieces, I can make some money.
The wrong one-day venue? That's where you find mass produced imports and non-handmade items, no matter how pleasant they may be. As a professional artist-crafter, I would likely find that people will pass me and my goods by at this kind of gift show, with a hand shielding their eyes from me (yes, that happened) so that I would not, heaven forbid, think they might even want to look at me or my probably-too-expensive-who-needs-it wares that don't belong here. Awkward.
I've done these gift shows in school gymnasiums and community centers where I think it actually hurt my credibility to take part. I'm so leery of doing another of these that my basic instinct is to run the other way, fast, when an invitation comes in.
The gift show I did a couple of Sundays ago was a tiny one. It did earn me a bit when I did it last year despite its being casually planned, but unfortunately it was still less well planned this time and not as well attended. It had five jewelry artists and one potter (me). Although the jewelry styles were different from each other, this is still not exactly what you'd call a variety of art media. A painter had a few small pieces, but she was not present and left the work at her table to be attended every so often by a friend. A very personable bread baker was there with brochures, but no samples. And because of the lack of variety there last year (it was jewelry-heavy even then), quite a few people might not have been interested enough to return this year. No credibility. Equally important was the issue of signs outside. There were none. That put the kibosh on impulse-driven foot traffic. So now this show may be a borderline venue for me, or not good at all. But...
Why did I choose to be part of this show again? Well, I made a decent few dollars last year, but most of all, the people who put the show together to benefit their organization were friendly, fun and smart. The location last time was in a senior living center with lots of guests, residents and caregivers coming through. If that sounds undesirable, well, it worked nonetheless. This year, the venue was changed to a building nearby, where community meetings take place and there is a Sunday school. Theoretically, the walk-ins should have been plentiful. However, school let out at noon, and our show was scheduled from 1-5 PM. Had we scheduled for 11 AM-3 PM instead, we might have caught the attention of the parental crowd before their children came out. It is a relatively affluent urban area, after all. There was also some kind of dedication ceremony going on in another part of the building before 1 PM, but no sign in the lobby to direct people from there to look in on the gift show in our area of the building afterward. (If any of the coordinators are reading this, are you smacking yourselves in your lovely foreheads?) In addition, although plenty of automobile traffic passes by there, there was no sign outside or on the corners of surrounding blocks. And the flyer, which contained only text and no necessary photos, was an email only, that went out just a few days before the show.
Maybe it's a little weird that I'm not sorry I did this show, considering I sold just six pieces.
I still enjoyed it because those friendly, comfortable people bought just enough pottery to make me feel it wasn't a loss. I had such a good time with them that am going to try and work with the organizers, if they will let me, to make this a better show next year. I will have advice: Mix it up more with the vendor types. Publicize with flyers and posters as well as two or three emails. Go beyond your own organization to publicize, by asking vendors to use their own email lists (besides your own mailing list) a few weeks before the show, then again soon before. Choose the right date and time. Put up small posters in public spaces of local libraries, synagogues, churches, etcetera.
I'll get down to brass tacks on the economics of being a craft artist doing this kind of gift show and looking at other potential markets in next week's post.