An Event

Over the weekend, I attended (as a vendor) the Vergennes Day festivities. It's been a while since I did a booth (last year I did one on the spur of the moment for a mini-event, that didn't go well), but before that it had been a very long time.

I stopped doing booths because I felt like I hadn't quite figured out what to offer in order to be successful at an event like that. Having your own art booth is very different from selling paintings in a gallery or online. More, each venue is different. Some are art focused, and so people will come expecting to spend money on fine art or prints. Others are crafting events, so they might have been thinking that there might be some art there, but are perhaps looking more for something knitted or nailed together. More, like this last one, people have no expectations at all, except for perhaps food.

If I had only gone into the food business, I'd be raking it in at these events! People do love to eat!

I'm pleased to say that I think this booth went well. No one was expecting art there, but I still made a decent amount of sales. I had prepared by matting prints and having other things to offer like greeting cards and postcards, in addition to a smattering of originals (I didn't bring many though, this being a non-art event.) Basically, I had my price points covered, from $1 and up!

The greeting cards. I'm selling them as an Alice in Wonderland set. 

All the new prints. I much prefer to offer them matted, because I think they look nicer.

My booth came together at the last moment, and while I need to figure some other things out, I was not unhappy with it. Of course, there is always a catch and mine came in the form of a giant road cone:

Is that snazzy, or what? It turns out that there was a huge hole right in the center of the booth that the grass had grown level in, rendering it invisible. First my husband twisted his ankle in it, and a little while later I took a header in it myself. We talked to an organizer of the event, and her solution was to swipe a traffic cone from the 5K race (I hope it wasn't anything important...) and plop it right over the hole. I don't think it helped my booth appeal all that much, unfortunately. Also, several people who did stop in got goosed by it, because it's exactly that height. *sigh*

I only worked on one ACEO to pass the time:

Colored pencil on black illustration board.

And I hung out with my husband, who in general was bored out of his mind. BUT! He was there and supportive, and was much appreciated! He's going to help me with a few future booths as well, but I think he's most looking forward to the big one in October where there will be beer and wine vendors. Somehow, I think he'll be much happier during that two day event than he was with this one day event!

It's actually because I did well enough that I'm going to sign up for the bigger (WAY more expensive) event in October. It's an actual art fest, so my hope is that I'll do much better than I did here.

In other news, school is finally starting! Both my kids will head back on Wednesday, and I should finally be able to start working on something bigger than an ACEO! Oh, speaking of which, I have been getting requests for prints that size. So, that's one more thing to add to my list of need to do/have's.

Me, hanging in my booth on Saturday. Perhaps a wee bit sweaty (it was hot at times!)