- Messages
- 36,132
- Location
- ABQ NM
LOML and I displayed my stuff today at the Claremont Village Venture Arts and Crafts Fair (I refuse to use the "e" at the end of "Fair".)
This was definitely the biggest show we've done to date, with over 450 vendors. It took up about 4 x 3 city blocks, and those blocks were full of people most of the day. Unfortunately, there was a severe shortage of people willing to buy my kind of work at the prices I'm asking. There were a lot of crafters selling lower-priced items, and they seemed to be doing an OK amount of business, but not a lot. Those of us selling higher-priced items didn't have nearly as many sales. I sold one piece and ended up in the red...didn't make back my entry fee, but I wont go hungry as a result.
Despite the lack of sales, LOML and I had a great time. The weather was gorgeous, we had a prime shady booth location, I got to talk to a lot of people who admired my work, and I got to spend the day with the best wife I've ever had.
Here are a couple street shots, plus one I just had to take of some highly pruned trees growing alongside a restaurant. No booth shots this week...it looked about the same as it did last week in Thousand Oaks.
Just to illustrate how unpredictable this market is, last year about this time, we did a show and our booth neighbors were gourd artists, selling pieces priced from about $10 to $40. That weekend I did a pretty decent amount several hundred dollars) of sales and they only sold one gourd (and it was to me, for $30 as I recall). Today, while I was selling next to nothing, they were doing a fairly brisk business. Go figure. Another artist and good friend of ours does great ceramic animal caricatures in the $20 to $50 range, and she typically sells a lot of product at any given show. She was having a relatively slow day herself until a former customer who hadn't seen her in a few years dropped by her booth and purchased/ordered $750 worth of stuff for gifts. You just never know.
This was definitely the biggest show we've done to date, with over 450 vendors. It took up about 4 x 3 city blocks, and those blocks were full of people most of the day. Unfortunately, there was a severe shortage of people willing to buy my kind of work at the prices I'm asking. There were a lot of crafters selling lower-priced items, and they seemed to be doing an OK amount of business, but not a lot. Those of us selling higher-priced items didn't have nearly as many sales. I sold one piece and ended up in the red...didn't make back my entry fee, but I wont go hungry as a result.
Despite the lack of sales, LOML and I had a great time. The weather was gorgeous, we had a prime shady booth location, I got to talk to a lot of people who admired my work, and I got to spend the day with the best wife I've ever had.
Here are a couple street shots, plus one I just had to take of some highly pruned trees growing alongside a restaurant. No booth shots this week...it looked about the same as it did last week in Thousand Oaks.
Just to illustrate how unpredictable this market is, last year about this time, we did a show and our booth neighbors were gourd artists, selling pieces priced from about $10 to $40. That weekend I did a pretty decent amount several hundred dollars) of sales and they only sold one gourd (and it was to me, for $30 as I recall). Today, while I was selling next to nothing, they were doing a fairly brisk business. Go figure. Another artist and good friend of ours does great ceramic animal caricatures in the $20 to $50 range, and she typically sells a lot of product at any given show. She was having a relatively slow day herself until a former customer who hadn't seen her in a few years dropped by her booth and purchased/ordered $750 worth of stuff for gifts. You just never know.