Claremont Village Venture Art Show

Vaughn McMillan

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LOML and I did a one-day show today in Claremont, about 50 minutes east of home. It's the biggest one in the area. I'm not sure how many vendors, but it takes up three east-west streets and three north-south streets...nine large square blocks of vendors. We did this show last fall and lost money, even though the crowd was big. (I paid a $275 entry fee and sold one $40 pen.) We decided to take a gamble this fall and try it again, kind of a "last chance" show. If it bombed, I was planning to lay off the shows for a while. If it did OK, I'd consider continuing.

I had misread the vendor instructions, and thought the show started at 10:00. Turns out, it started at 9:00. We kinda figured it out when we rolled up at 8:30 and all the other vendors were pretty much set up. Our timing was perfect...just an hour off. I finished the final arrangement of the display at 9:58. So for the first hour of the show, I was setting up the booth and display. In the end, I made up for the lost time by being one of the last booths to tear down.

A couple crowd shots: (All with the cell phone...I didn't get a real camera out while we were there.)

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And a booth shot (in action):

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And a little less crowded:

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Lots of people visited the booth. I did so much talking, I lost my voice several times during the day.

And oh yeah...we tripled our entry fee. It was our second best show ever, even including all the 2-day shows we've done. :D So I'm not throwing in the towel yet. I'm already planning to enter an indoor show that runs for several consecutive weekends at the end of November and into December. ;)
 
BTW, for the Tour de Wood 2010 guys...

One of my booth visitors today is a docent at the Maloof Foundation. She gives tours of the house. She suggested that we try to set up a private group tour. It's $15 per person instead of the usual $10, but she said is can be well worth it. Looking at their website, we may not have a big enough group to qualify, but I suspect they might bend the rules a bit for a tour bus full of woodworkers from around the world. ;) She also mentioned that tours on days other than the usual Thursdays or Saturdays may be possible, depending on the availability of a volunteer docent.
 
Hey V,
Looks like great minds run in the same gutter.... I built racks for my tables last year that look exactly like yours.... I don't think I copied them from anyone, just out of the old feeble.... I even use green cloths on one of my tables... mostly I use a maroon.
I've since taken one table out of my booth and placed a 6' long x 5.5' tall shelf unit to hold my bowls and bigger turnings.

And congratulations on a good show.... I'm looking forward to when I can get back on the circuit.... I had to cancel all of my shows in Oct because of the surgery.... then got pneumonia on top of that.... thinking I'm getting strong enough that I'm going to try to do some work next week.
 
Wow!.. It's refreshing to see a crowd for a change...and have them willing to part with some money...nice!! Congratulations and many happy returns.
 
Thanks guys...it was a definite relief to have a decent show for a change.

Sounds like it was a productive day Vaughn. What kind of items did you sell?

It was a pretty good mix of both high and low priced items, with everything else in between. Everything from a $20 bottle stopper or paper clip bowl to a $220 hollow form (one of my favorites).

I need to stock back up on potpourri bowls, paper clip bowls, and get a few more 'showcase' pieces added to the mix, too.
 
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