Art Fair Artists Success Show

Part II of a series to understand the operations of creating a new art show. Artists and Charities Hand in Hand will host its inaugural event on November 2 and 3, 2019, at the Palm Beach Convention Center in W. Palm Beach, Florida. How does a new art fair get started? What are all the steps involved, and for heaven's sake, where does the money come from and where does it go? The show organizer, Ingrid Robinson, spells it all out, from the initial concept to opening and then closing the doors at the Convention Center. Finding a destination venueFinding partners and sponsorsFinding exhibitorsMarketingPaying the bills This is a tutorial about starting an event from scratch, networking with a local community to build a "must attend" show that benefits all involved, the artists, the charities and the philanthropic goals of patrons. The show: Artists and Charities, November 2 & 3, West Palm Beach FL, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Learn more: ArtistsandCharities.com

Can Florida use another art festival? Does Palm Beach need an indoor art fair, during "the season?" Ingrid Robinson thinks so. Listen and learn how Ingrid gathers resources to host a show that will attract snowbirds to attend a new event. Joining her is Julie Mullen, co-founder of the award winning women-owned public relations firm The Buzz Agency, that is supporting Ingrid's plan. Developing an idea that shows success potentialChoosing the venueFinding sponsorsChoosing the tech team and marketing teamPartnering with local charities This is a tutorial about starting an event from scratch, networking with a local community to build a "must attend" show that benefits all involved, the artists, the charities and the philanthropic goals of patrons. The show: Artists and Charities, November 2 & 3, West Palm Beach, FL, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Learn more: ArtistsandCharities.com

You support our websites with your donations and we really appreciate it. We couldn't do it without you. Listen as Connie Mettler, host of ArtFairRadio.com and ArtFairCalendar.com and her co hosts, Sara Shambarger, former Art Director of the Krasl Art Fair in St. Joseph, MI and NAIA board member, and Trudi Van Dyke, veteran art fair juror, art curator and art consultant will join me as we draw the names for the winners in the 2019 Pledge Drive. We'll give away nearly $9000 in prizes to our patrons. If you sent us $$ during the Pledge Drive there is a very good chance you will win one of our 63 prizes!

Building an art fair career and maintaining it through market changes, bad weather, rejections, social media challenges and personal needs takes focus, adaptability, good timing and some luck. Our entrepreneurial guests share their stories: Stephanie Wheat is a self taught handbag designer specializing in handmade leather accessories. Manufacturing her brand REBELLION in Chicago and selling throughout the country, fine craft shows such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the One of a Kind Show, pop up events and strong social media marketing. She has recently been invited to Paris Fashion Week. Kathy Ross, has been a full time self-employed artist since 1978. She has pursued many materials (99% sculptural) and is currently working in these areas: map/book-collaged and bejewelled figures and clothing pieces (which look wearable, but aren’t). The basic method: make a frameworkfound tea/cookie tins (cut up and soldered) to make sculptures like the tin figures, heads, vehicles, houses, globes. The challenge of making something flat behave like something 3-dimensional. Kathy's website: http://kathyross3d.com Kathleen Teach has supported herself at art shows, entirely, for 20 years, starting out with nothing."I look back on it now with wonderful memories and some pride. My independence and sense of adventure was the envy of all my friends." Traveling with her trailer alone for at least 160,000 miles, loving seeing America. Her work is one of a kind meditative zen oil lamps. We listen to their stories and are inspired.

Participating in the nation's art fairs is not for the faint-heared or the penniless. So much overhead! We won't go into all of those costs, but a serious contender for the diversity of options and costs is lodging on the road. Some artists opt to stay near home so they can sleep in their own beds, thus limiting many opportunities, and at the other extreme some go for the full-fledged "its a write off" and stay in quality lodgings. How about you? What do you do when planning a trip to an art fair? Sleep in your van? Air BnB? VRBO? tent camp? RV? frequent flyer points at specific chain hotels? Show lodging? stay with friends? We talk about all these options and more, To get it started our panel will include Fletcher Dean, a photographer from Michigan who prefers Air BnB and Don Hart, mixed media from Connecticut who travels with a camping trailer. This is a call in show with input from many artists.

There are thousands of artists in the U.S. who participate in art fairs for years and years. There are many who drop out after a few years (it's a lot of work!). Then there are those who take their art fair experience to build their own business, leaving the street behind. A fair number have become show organizers: Jim Delutes in Colorado, Bonnie Blandford in Michigan, Donna Beaubien in Michigan, Bill Kinney in the East and Carla Fox in Oregon. We'll be hearing from these entrepreneurs: Carolyn Edlund, founder of Artsy Shark, a top ten art blog, who spent 20 years running a production studio making and selling jewelry, and now writes and consults on business topics for artistsDrew Hendrix, President of Red River Paper, founded in 1997 with over 40 years experience in fine papers that are integral to many art fair artistsLuke Block, a veteran of art fairs as a potter, who is part of the team at FlourishDisplays.comJeff Abele, GrandStandApps.com, a software developer focused on the art fair business who has developed a state-of-the-art app to enable artists and art fairs to connect with their audiencesMarissa Wagley of US Weight, a company that works with artist/inventor Jim Eaton to market the weights he designed for his art fair booth Learn how each of them took their life experiences and extended them to a new business.

Part II - Using Facebook to connect with your buyers Our guest, artist Dave Emmons has over 85,000 followers on Facebook and has cut his show schedule from over 30 a year to only 4. Will Dave's tips work for you? We highlight how Facebook works and why it is powerful, containing step by step tips that are solid and time-tested. Expect an overall marketing plan that goes beyond the free FB tutorials and details how to utilize them to strategically impact your sales. learn how to use FB tools to identify the exact demographics of your potential fans using the analytics and stats from FB to refine and target your advertising learn how to use your FB page to bring buyers to your art fair booth Learn how to use the tools so you can start today to take advantage of the huge Facebook platform of 2 billion monthly active users who use Facebook each and every month. Click here for a video that illustrates the lessons taught on this podcast: https://player.vimeo.com/external/ Dave's website: https://www.vermontnaturecreations.com/ His Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hangingwatergardens/

The high overhead of doing 30 shows a year exhausting you? What if you only did 20? or 10? When I first started my websites I thought if I only I could earn an extra $500 a month that would be great. Now nearly 15 years later I'm no longer putting up a tent and traveling to events. Social media, learning its ins and outs, made the difference for me. Dave Emmons shares some of the same background I do. He has participated in art fairs for 27 years. A whle back he thought there "might be a better way" to sell his work, he was starting to hate what he was doing. Whether you are new to this business of art fairs and are intrigued with having more freedom in your life or you are a long time veteran and just want to slow down, Dave's and my premise is "let's get online." Your customers ARE online, an international audience, online 24/7. You have (or should have) mailing lists. You probably have a website. You're probably on Facebook, maybe even a FB business page. Can you put it to work to improve your life? Dave is an artist who also coaches other artists on the skills needed to sell their work online. If you're saying, "I've tried that"; "I'm too busy", "It's too complicated" or a myriad other reasons, give a listen to this podcast. I think it might help you. Get started with Dav's free online masterclass. To register visit www.ArtistMarketingFormula.com. Learn more about Dave Emmons and his ideas: https://www.daveemmons.com/p/step-by-step-success-with-facebook-marketing-for-the-artist-and-craftsperson

The St. James Court Art Show (Oct. 5-7, 2018) began five decades ago as a small open air art show taking up only a small corner of Old Louisville's St. James Court. It has since become the second largest event held in Louisville each year (second to the Kentucky Derby Festival). It hosts 700 artists in 4 neighborhoods in this historic part of the city. On September 3, 2018, the Kentucky Historical Society will dedicate a Kentucky Historical Marker to Malcolm Bird, and his friends, not only for founding the Art Show, but also for starting the renovations and revitalization of St. James Court in the 1950s. The work by these urban pioneers, led to the designation of the area as an Historic Preservation District in 1974 .... Old Louisville was born .... or maybe reborn. Our guests who will walk through the history with me are: Mark Bird, who, with Sonny Whittle, created the first St. James Court Art Show poster, and is Malcolm's nephew and subsequently with Sonny produced if for the following 6 years, 1981-1987new executive director of the St. James Court Art Show, Howard Rosenberglong time participant in the show photographer and now music producer Hippie Jack StoddartPrintmaker Mary Lou Hess, who has participated in the show since the beginning If you love art fairs, and particularly this one, this will be a fact-filled and fun listen as we learn what makes an art festival a success. Fun fact: this show is so popular in Louisville that they even close the schools on the Friday of the show so everyone can enjoy it.

Part III of a series to understand the operations of creating a new art show. Artists and Charities Hand in Hand will host its inaugural event on November 2 and 3, 2019, at the Palm Beach Convention Center in W. Palm Beach, Florida. One of the biggest challenges of promoting a new event is finding exhibitors who will take a chance that it will be successful and lead on to year 2. Two artists who will be participating: Amy Reshefsky, from Florida and Quebec, who works in multiple media who has worked with the show organizer, Ingrid Robinson, at several other events and is well known in the Palm Beach vicinity. H. Allen Benowitz, a self-educated photographer from North Carolina. Invited by the Sheik to photo journal an international festival in Morocco/ His work has appeared in many Florida publications and he participated in Art Basel and many Florida art festivals. Then you have to make the event's name known in the community and get publicity. Rickie Leiter, of the RickieReport.com, a blogger and podcaster on the art scene who reports to the South Florida Community of Artists and Patrons will tell about her role in connecting with the art patrons. Lastly, you need to connect directly with establihed art institutions to show your credibility. Jeanne Martin of the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, will share why her historic art center is joining in as a charity partner for this new event.