Growing up in Buffalo, New York I would love forward to the Allentown Arts Festival, where every year artists from all over the country would gather to sell their creations. It was fun and inspirational, but I would never have imagined one day having the opportunity to share my work. Truthfully, the thought of putting myself out there, in the art festival format, was a little intimidating to me… until now.
Fast forward 20 years and here I am; living in this cute town called Chagrin Falls where the local art center presents an annual art fair called Art by the Falls. In February, I decided to take a chance and apply to participate as an artist for this year’s show. I was pleasantly surprised when I received an acceptance email welcoming me as an artist and excited for the opportunity. Then, reality started to sink in and the fear of knowing the amount of work it would take to pull this off and meet my standards…not exaggerating when I say fear.
The weekend has since come and gone and it was a spectacular event. I’m beyond happy that I was part of such a wonderful community of artists. In fact, I’d love to participate again with this and perhaps other art fairs, but I wanted to take a moment to write about the work and preparation that went into this experience for anyone who might be considering doing an outdoor art show in the future.
In my opinion, these are the top 20 things to rememberer if you decide to become a vendor at an art fair:
- Branding: as you think about your booth, consider not only how your work will look in the space, but how your business materials (cards, website, logo etc) coordinate with your booth. I walked around and saw so many wonderful artists poorly representing their brand. The artist who considers the look and feel of their brand definitely stands out.
- Get off your damn phone!: I was shocked to see how many artists were standing in the back of their booths on their phone! WTF? The weather can be iffy and sure, you won’t have oodles of customers at every moment, but people… if you’re on your phone people will assume your busy. I even went in a few booths with people on their phones and they barley mustered up a hello. That’s just unacceptable.
- Make sure you have inventory: This seems obvious and takes a ton of work to ensure but it’s worth the time and investment. It makes your space feel productive and full. Also, if you’re short on original product, create lower cost prints or cards that might translate into additional revenue streams for you.
- Trial run your space: Way before the event ever happens, you should know exactly what your space with look like. I used masking tape to map the space so I could arrange the walls and items how I imagined. Since I rented my tent, I wasn’t able to do this take with the actual tent (I would have if I owned my tent) but this was as good in helping me to coordinate my layout. It also helped me to create a list of all items I would need to bring so I wouldn’t forget anything as well as allow me to marinate a little so any ideas or items I haven’t originally expected might pop up too.
- Collect leads: If you’re not on your damn phone, you can interact with your customers or even passer’s by and then maybe they’ll come in your booth and turn into a customer. I always encourage people to sign uo for my email list – you should too.
- Create!: Personally, I always bring an easel, paints and canvas so I can paint live at any art event. People like to watch an artist create and it encourages questions. Plus, in my downtime, I’d rather be painting than stressing over not having customers.
- Prepare your elevator pitch well in advance of the show. People will ask you the same questions and having a response you can easily share that resents the brand you hope to create helps to maintain consistency. You know the questions people will ask you – so be prepared so you look more eloquent and feel more confident.
- Add prices to your items! Another WTF kind of thing here but seriously… no excuse – just do it.
- Plan ahead: participating in these events takes so much work, time, money and energy. Be relationship-minded and think about the experience you enjoy when you visit someone’s booth at an art show. Put yourself in the customer’s mind. Make an effort at creating relationships and connections with your visitors because that can translate into a future sale too.
- Have fun and enjoy the opportunity to share all the work you’ve created!
