I am a founding member of a “new” artisan’s group, and was in charge of our first ever wholesale/retail show this weekend. This blog post will cover some thoughts and observations on planning and running the show, and on the effect of the economy on the show. Hopefully it will be helpful to others planning events or getting ready to show.
First, our group is a very young group, having held our first jury for members in June, and our second one in August. We have 23 juried members, and 7 of these signed up to participate in the show. We are the Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail, and our website is http://www.sccottontrail.org/artisans.html As part of our grant proposal we had said we were going to do a wholesale show. Now, given that I have been an artist and business person in this area for going on 30 years, I had really, really, really, really stong doubts as to the viability of this proposal! I thought a retail show might work fine, but did not think we would get retailers to show up for a wholesale show, much less buy anything!
However, having come in after the grant was written, this is what we were stuck with. So we added the retail component, deciding to have the wholesale part on a Friday evening, and the retail part the following Saturday.
Next we had to decide where and when to have it. Not just a building, but a city/county as our group covers 5 counties and many cities and towns. I volunteered to run the first show (I know, I know - I am a glutton for punishment!), so that narrowed down the where to my town. Looking at when to have it, I spoke with a friend who runs the local arts commission and the SC Jazz Festival held here every October (we are the home of jazz great Dizzy Gillespie). She was thrilled with the idea of having our show the same weekend, to give festival goers an additional activity during the day on Saturday (most of the jazz is at night). So then we had when.
Next we worked on a building site. Since the festival is centered downtown (town pop. 6,000 to put this in perspective - downtown is basically two streets and about 3 blocks) we felt we really needed a site downtown. So I talked to the head of our Parks & Rec dept which oversees the Arts Commission, and thus is ultimately in charge of the festival. He got us into the Police Department Conference Room, which is in one of the downtown blocks, just down the block from Centennial Park where there would be live music during the day on Saturday. (Ok, ok - you can quite laughing! The PDCR is a very nice room with floor to ceiling windows on 2 sides right on the street - you can’t even tell you are connected to the PD really.)
It is not a huge room, but then we only had 7 artists sign up so that was ok. As it turned out, it was a great space both in terms of the space arrangement and in terms of location in relation to the festival. The festival put out a tri-fold brochure that had a map in the middle with locations for events marked, and we were included on that - fantastic! They also had a write up in Southern Living (huge magazine in the US), and in lots of other regional magazines. I sent out press releases featuring various artists that were something a bit different for our area that I hoped would grab attention - we had two glass artists and two jewelry artists (yes, yours truly was one <vbg>), neither of which is at all common around here.
Then I put up posters in area restaurants and shops all over town. We sent postcards to businesses and arts commission members. Each artist got postcards to send to their mailing list. We had a virtual postcard that I sent to every artist to send to their e-mail lists. We got some radio public service announcements. All in all, some good buzz.
I hand delivered invitations to the local gift shops and frame shops that we hoped would come to the wholesale event. A local caterer donated the food and drink for the wholesale event.
So the big day comes, and I grab my maid (since my partner - my daughter - is a freshman in Ohio this year, and that is a bit too far from SC for her to come help anymore!) and we go down to the PD to unload my stuff and to get the tables all set up and spaces marked off. Once all the two person stuff was done Deloris headed back to my house and I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the space (the janitor was on vacation. Dead roaches everywhere. Yuck!), and getting my booth set up so I would be ready to help everyone move in. Several of our artists were showing for the first time ever, and I figured they might need some assistance.
Everyone got in and set up, and really, 7 in the room was perfect. We could have fit one more, but that would have been it. I had set up the glass artists near the big windows on one side, and our featured painter by the windows by the door. I set my stuff up on the back wall, so that if i was needed anywhere else I could still see my booth from the rest of the room.
I lined the windows with posters, and put up an easel with black foam core board with a poster mounted on that outside. Plus I brought two huge ferns from home and put them on either side of the door, both to draw attention and to make it look nice. I brought a pretty pot from home and another artist brought a pretty fall mum to go in it for the food table.
So we are all ready, and - of course - the rain is pouring down and the wind is howling. And the retailers…… basically don’t come. We had 5 stores to show up, and none placed actual wholesale orders. I did make two “wholesale” sales, but they really should have been retail as I am certain they were for personal use. I was sorry, but not surprised. Food was great though! My vote is to skip the wholesale part for next year, and either not open Friday night or just do a retail bit on Friday night too.
For the first time ever, I did not take my jewelry down and carry it home for the night. Just left everything right out. Couldn’t even cover it as two of the other artists had not had table covers, and I had lent them my extras that I use to cover my booth ;) Said they were newbies! Given that we were IN the Police Department, I figured - correctly - that my stuff was as safe as it could be. Can’t tell you how nice it was not to have to set everything up again for once!!! A real treat.
The ticket booth opened at 10am, so we had decided we would open at 10. We should have found out the whole schedule of events, because it turned out the Masonic Lodge was having a breakfast, and a lot of folks were dropping by starting about 9am when I was the only one there. So next year we’ll open at 9 to catch the post-breakfast traffic!
I put more posters outside now that the weather had cleared up. The town put a sandwich board with balloons out front to mark us as an “official” part of the festival, and I moved my easel to go above the sandwich board. We put the whole thing out by the street, so cars could see it and so could folks down the block at the live music in the park. Then I took another easel with foam board and poster down to the park, and added a directional sign to that one. Plus I had dug out a “for sale” sign that sticks in the ground from under my house, and covered that with posters and directional signs and put it in the park.
From the time we officially opened at 10 until we closed at 6pm we had a constant stream of traffic. Never less than 5 folks in the room (remember - small room!), and generally 15 - 30. Really fabulous traffic for a first time show for a brand new group with no track record or reputation yet! The painters did not sell a lot, but one had a gallery book her for a show, and another had a gallery ask to carry her work, so they were pleased as punch! I sold over $1,000 in one day - which is just fine and dandy for me! I get to order new silver Monday - yeah!!
Overall the artists seemed very pleased with our first show, and so am I.
As far as sales and the economy, I sold about where I have been selling for years - heaviest in $25 - $75, lots of under $25, and only a few over $75. My work prices up to $400 right now, and none of the top range sold. It got ooohed and aaaahed over, everyone said how much they loved it, but they didn’t BUY it!
That said, some of what was bought was obviously very available discretionary spending money. Some of the people who normally have the big discretionary money were either not buying at all, or buying well under what I would have expected them to spend even 6 months ago. And some were purchases that were very carefully considered, and very budget conscious.
So I am not sure what that all says about the economy! I think the top spenders were spending a bit less than normal, the bottom spenders were spending less than normal, and the mid-range folks were pretty close to normal. At least that is my interpretation. Also don’t know how that translate to other areas of the country - we have never really bounced back from 9/11 as a region and other regions did.
Everyone agreed that we should do the show again next year in conjunction with the jazz fest, so I take that as a sign that I did ok with our first show! Thanks to those who sent me tips over the last year as I was preparing for this!
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