Art Fair Booth CAD

[bill t.]

In these modern times there is almost no human endeavor that can be done without a computer.  So I said what the heck, why not drag a computer into planning my November art fair booths?

So here it is, Art Fair CAD done the hard way with CS4.  Every picture a layer that can be skittered around, hidden, revealed, resized.  The silhouette people's heights bracket just above and below standard eye height, as if it mattered with this egregiously salon style display.  They too are subject to skittering and are also useful for hiding parts of pictures I don't like.   Notice the black walls, thank you Peter Lik Art Galleries ™.

Actually it turns out this is worthwhile because the booth shown is not my usual one with 4, 10 foot wide walls, but a three walled, 8 x 8 booth that cramps my over-reaching too-big-for-an-art-fair pictures.  I saw for instance that the smaller pictures to the right needed to be less wide than originally planned which allowed me to imagine that this total vanity was somehow useful.

Heavy on the autumnal motif, can't sell enough of that stuff September through December.  Balance of 6 old sure-fire sellers combined with 6 new dewy-eyed hopefuls to prove to my collectors that at at least one of my feet is still outside the grave, although come to think of it that is not necessarily an advantage for them.

[attachment=17482:tondreau...ems_2009.jpg]

PS this image looks like crud, trust me it's nicer in person.

[Justan]

The photo is cool. The photos are spectacular!

I have a question: how many copies of images do you (or anyone) bring to art fairs?  I'm trying to get an idea of how much inventory to bring along…

I do like the dark walls. One photographer I saw used a print of what appeared to be stone with inlayed fossils for backdrop.

How many lights do you bring for illuminating the work?

[bill t.]

Bring along as many as you think you can sell!  Most easily done when you've been to a few previous fairs.  It's not so much a simple number, but a matter of bringing enough of the ones that sell.

Don't confuse an art fair with a gallery exhibit.  For sales at an art fair, it is always the most spectacular pieces that sell.  You will sell several copies of your flashiest pieces, and perhaps none of your merely attractive or artful ones.

There are two possible bad outcomes to bringing the wrong number of pictures...you will wind up with a lot of unsold inventory OR (even worse) you will run out of a hot-selling image long before the fair is over.  But sooner or later you can sell the ones that go unsold at the first fair (or at least re-use the frames), but you can never recoup a lost sale.

I take at least one replacement for each image, and several more of the known hot items.  On the center panel I will take 5, 4, and 3 replacements of each going from top to bottom.  That's one more of each than I think I will sell based on the last fair in the same building, most others will have 1 or 2 replacements.  Will also take at least one medium-sized stop-gap image to replace recently sold images until the buyer has time to leave the show, this is a sort of roundabout courtesy for repeat buyers and collectors.

Also, do not think for a second that you can assess by yourself what your best sellers are going to be, only experience will indicate what's going to sell.  My best sellers are not the images I personally like the best.  I often cry about this on the way to the bank.  In one case I avoided what became my #2 best seller for over a year, until I used it as a third-string swap-out towards the end of a show and it attracted a crowd and sold within minutes, whooda thunk.

Lights are your most important sales tool.  Never count on the building lights, they will always let you down.  If you can have a spot on each image, that's good. The catch is that most shows "limit" you to between 200 to 300 watts total current draw which technically means no more than 8 to 12, 25 watt MR-16 spots.  This next show I've got 9 foot high panels, so I've a built a pyramid support out of the 1 x 2 Oak pieces to support 3 pairs of high CRI, 5000K, T8 fluorescent fixtures way up high, will see how that works.  No spotlighting, but the colors are totally knockout with the good light quality.  The MR-16 spots have a sort of a warmish dichroic halo which somewhat offsets the drama of spotlighting, will see how this plays out.  Hoping the black walls don't look too shabby with the flat lighting.  BTW most of the well known art fair gypsies just ignore the wattage limitations, but a newby might get busted especially if a fuse pops on his circuit.

If you have a ProPanel setup, the most common lighting setup is Luxo style arm lights stuck in the tubes at the top of the panels, no modifications required.  If you plan to do shows, you need a ProPanel setup.  If you use fluorescent lightbulb replacements you can easily stay withing the wattage limit, but I have never seen a fluorescent lightbulb replacement with decent light quality, and the "daylight" ones are the worst.

[Justan]

> Don't confuse an art fair with a gallery exhibit. For sales at an art fair, it is always the most spectacular pieces that sell. You will sell several copies of your flashiest pieces, and perhaps none of your merely attractive or artful ones.

Cool. Thanks. I'm aiming for both markets.

> There are two possible bad outcomes to bringing the wrong number of pictures...you will wind up with a lot of unsold inventory OR (even worse) you will run out of a hot-selling image long before the fair is over. But sooner or later you can sell the ones that go unsold at the first fair (or at least re-use the frames), but you can never recoup a lost sale.

It’s the old “better to have it and not need it than the other way around scenario.” Actually there is a bigger concern, and that is the ability to transport everything in reasonable space.

> I take at least one replacement for each image, and several more of the known hot items. On the center panel I will take 5, 4, and 3 replacements of each going from top to bottom. That's one more of each than I think I will sell based on the last fair in the same building, most others will have 1 or 2 replacements. Will also take at least one medium-sized stop-gap image to replace recently sold images until the buyer has time to leave the show, this is a sort of roundabout courtesy for repeat buyers and collectors.

Excellent model(!) and I hadn’t thought of the effect of the just bought image. I agree that one wouldn’t want to put up an identical replacement immediately, as it would likely diminish the value to the buyer. Do you leave the blank spot for very long or put the alternate piece as soon as the buyer steps away?

> Also, do not think for a second that you can assess by yourself what your best sellers are going to be, only experience will indicate what's going to sell. My best sellers are not the images I personally like the best. I often cry about this on the way to the bank. In one case I avoided what became my #2 best seller for over a year, until I used it as a third-string swap-out towards the end of a show and it attracted a crowd and sold within minutes, whooda thunk.

I've heard that before. A cousin did art shows for a couple of decades. He sold artist’s paint brushes at bigger art fairs. It took him several years to get a sense of what customers wanted so he carried lots of inventory. Of course he could fit several hundred brushes in a suit case. The suit case becomes a sprinter van and maybe also a large trailer when dealing with even mid sized framed photos.

> Lights are your most important sales tool. Never count on the building lights, they will always let you down. If you can have a spot on each image, that's good. The catch is that most shows "limit" you to between 200 to 300 watts total current draw which technically means no more than 8 to 12, 25 watt MR-16 spots. This next show I've got 9 foot high panels, so I've a built a pyramid support out of the 1 x 2 Oak pieces to support 3 pairs of high CRI, 5000K, T8 fluorescent fixtures way up high, will see how that works. No spotlighting, but the colors are totally knockout with the good light quality. The MR-16 spots have a sort of a warmish dichroic halo which somewhat offsets the drama of spotlighting, will see how this plays out. Hoping the black walls don't look too shabby with the flat lighting. BTW most of the well known art fair gypsies just ignore the wattage limitations, but a newby might get busted especially if a fuse pops on his circuit.

The MR16s appear to be LED lighting. I was hoping someone has gone this route. At the fairs I saw over the summer everyone used incandescents. Lots of them. One booth had 2 lights about every 12” all the way around his 10x20 booth. I thought the LEDs would be a smarter choice, and probably more resilient to the rigors of travel.

> If you have a ProPanel setup, the most common lighting setup is Luxo style arm lights stuck in the tubes at the top of the panels, no modifications required. If you plan to do shows, you need a ProPanel setup. If you use fluorescent lightbulb replacements you can easily stay withing the wattage limit, but I have never seen a fluorescent lightbulb replacement with decent light quality, and the "daylight" ones are the worst.

I hadn’t heard of ProPanel. Thanks! Their site is pretty cool. Some of their examples take advantage of lots of vertical space.
I was half way thinking of manufacturing something but these are a good value and do everything they need to, including what appears to be light weight design while being stable in the environment

Thanks!!!! I printed yer post and will use it as a model as I collect pieces of this complex puzzle. At some point I hope to have the opportunity to buy you dinner or something for all the great info you’ve shared!!!!!!!!!!

[bill t.]

The LED style MR-16's are really poor.  Either ghastly yellow or alien blue, and not very bright.  I don't think any of them are really spots.  I bought a few for testing and was unimpressed.  I've heard that there are some really nice LED lights out there in the $80 range, but I haven't seen them.  I saw a booth with LED lighting that was running off a pair of car batteries but didn't have time to talk to the guy.

Yes the ProPanels are nice and my set has served well for a long time.  Lightweight and easy to transport.  As I stack them up in the pickup I lay framed pieces between the soft faced panels which really helps compact things for the move.  If you look at ProPanel.com they show a picture of a configuration with a closet in the back corner, extremely cool way to store inventory, buy the extra overhead bar so you can do that.  One bad thing about ProPanels is you can't use them outside because of wind and rain.  If you plan to do outside shows get the wire mesh style since it's wind and rainproof.  I never do outdoor shows after one near disaster and I've noticed a couple shows that used to be outdoors have now moved exclusively indoors.

But don't invest in panels or anything until you get a feel for doing shows.  It's a lot of work for the money.  On the upside it's fun and the social aspects of it is what I mostly like.  Sort an Art Woodstock event.  And you get a lot of feedback from visitors which can be very useful.  It's just about the polar opposite of the gallery experience.  It's somehow hard to image a really serious stick-up-the-wazoo gallery maven showing up at an art fair.  Leave your artist's statements at home.

[Justan]

> The LED style MR-16's are really poor. Either ghastly yellow or alien blue, and not very bright. I don't think any of them are really spots. I bought a few for testing and was unimpressed. I've heard that there are some really nice LED lights out there in the $80 range, but I haven't seen them. I saw a booth with LED lighting that was running off a pair of car batteries but didn't have time to talk to the guy.

I did some web based shopping yesterday I noticed that the cost for LED bulbs, as you pointed out above, can be a *stinger* - for a bit more than 4 fancy bulb  I can nearly put together a complete lighting system. I understand why so many go incandescent/fluorescent.

I also noticed the 12 volt LED stuff. Did the one setup you saw running of batteries put out enough light?

> Yes the ProPanels are nice and my set has served well for a long time. Lightweight and easy to transport. As I stack them up in the pickup I lay framed pieces between the soft faced panels which really helps compact things for the move. If you look at ProPanel.com they show a picture of a configuration with a closet in the back corner, extremely cool way to store inventory, buy the extra overhead bar so you can do that. One bad thing about ProPanels is you can't use them outside because of wind and rain. If you plan to do outside shows get the wire mesh style since it's wind and rainproof. I never do outdoor shows after one near disaster and I've noticed a couple shows that used to be outdoors have now moved exclusively indoors.

Thanks for mentioning the risks and requirements for setting up outdoors! I would bet that the survival rate of photos in an outdoor environments is somewhere between not terribly good and a disaster waiting to happen. Even with plastic bags covering everything, humidity, wind and rain, mixed with bare sunlight can do a lot of damage to paper based materials!!!

> But don't invest in panels or anything until you get a feel for doing shows. It's a lot of work for the money. On the upside it's fun and the social aspects of it is what I mostly like. Sort an Art Woodstock event.

The first couple of shows will be a steep learning experience, I'm sure. I will need to cobble something together. I have the display tent but that’s it for the moment. I could slice up some plywood to make some rickety display panels. It would work to get past the first couple of shows.

My first marketing goal is to get my stuff into some galleries. But it appears that the way to make a living is to do art shows.

> And you get a lot of feedback from visitors which can be very useful. It's just about the polar opposite of the gallery experience. It's somehow hard to image a really serious stick-up-the-wazoo gallery maven showing up at an art fair. Leave your artist's statements at home.

Cool - that's a good thing! At a town nearby (Bellevue, wa) there is a pretty big art fair hosted each summer by the local art museum. I'm told it attracts a lot of national class artists. I was surprised at the number of photographers exhibiting there last summer. Probably approaching 30% to 40% of the exhibits were photos. A lot of really good stuff, too. They say that about 100K potential customers come to the fair.

[bill t.]

there is a pretty big art fair hosted each summer by the local art museum. I'm told it attracts a lot of national class artists. I was surprised at the number of photographers exhibiting there last summer. Probably approaching 30% to 40% of the exhibits were photos. A lot of really good stuff, too. They say that about 100K potential customers come to the fair.

Then you've really got to distinguish yourself among the crowd of other photographers.  I do it by the size and framing of my pieces.  While I may lose a certain number of people with fixed ideas about how a photograph should look and be framed, I also sell very well to a less formalized group that is struck by the drama of my pieces and who identify with local scenes so dramatically presented.  They go for the image rather than the media.  But the point is you have to stand out some way.

Huge public fairs are not to your advantage, you get lost in the crowd.  99.5k of those guys are there to hang out and party and gawk and block the entrance to your booth.  What you want is the more specialized fairs that attract art oriented clientele, such the fair I'm going to in a couple weeks that is well organized and well promoted by a local art gallery.  It attracts art buyers and interior decorators, not party animals.  If you want to do the big crowd fairs, then you've got to figure out what will appeal to the masses and then present it in-their-face.  At those fairs a big dose of novelty goes a long way.

Be sure you have way to securely attach that tent to the ground.  Water filled gallon jugs won't do it.  At a June fair here in Albuquerque there were two out of three years where some tents were ripped up and thrown long distances by thunderstorm downdrafts.  That show is entirely inside now.

[Justan]

I agree that its important to have distinctive works, which I think I do, and is also why it’s important to nail the presentation. The Bellevue fair was always a good money maker for my cousin. My theory is that if the work is good I’ll get market share, if not, a short career and a lot of bad art to give away.

Also that particular fair is juried, so the work has to have appeal to the judges before anyone can rent space.

There is another fair in another nearby town called Puyallup. They have a traditional county fair there, which is rated as one of the top 10 fairs in the US and they say that gets about a 1.1+ million visitors over a 2 week run. Most of the exhibits are indoors there. I might go for that one next year, but doubt I’ll have my portfolio ready for the Bellevue fair’s deadline.

The bad news is that the average price for photos at the Puyallup fair is about half of what they go for at the Bellevue fair, and most exhibitors there are no where near as good as the ones at the Bellevue fair. This might work to my advantage, and at the worst, I’ll blend in perfectly