Artstreet, Green Bay

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to be a vendor at Artstreet in Green Bay...and I do honestly consider myself lucky. Over the course of the weekend, I heard from several people how difficult it is to get into the show. One person said that they receive about 500 applications (they accept about 200). After seeing some of the other vendors work, I was very impressed with the caliber of artists from all over the country. We saw people from Maryland, Arizona, Florida, and all over the Midwest. A guy 2 booths down from me was from Hawaii. It was definitely a fine art show...not a craft show.

Setting up was pretty easy (this is usually stressful for me, and sometimes I get just a little snippy with my husband if things aren't going smoothly). People started coming through shortly before 10:00 and I had my first sale pretty quickly (sometimes it seems to take forever to get that "ice-breaker" sale). Things were very steady but manageable all day. The average sale was much lower than in Lake Geneva a couple weeks ago, but it was still adding up nicely. In fact, at the days end, I think it was my best single sales day ever. Yay!

Sunday (as usual) started off a little slower, but I was so thrilled with Saturday's ending total that I wasn't worried. I also had lower expectations for Sunday because I felt like most of my best items sold Saturday. Before you knew it though, sales were flowing, and I had one family spend almost $200. That was a nice boost. As the day went on, I started dreading the work that I have in front of me to prepare for my next show in three weeks. The necklaces with rosettes were all selling. I had seven of my "Colette" style necklaces. Gone. I had 4 of the "Willow" style. Gone. I can only imagine what my ending sales total would have been if I had an endless supply of these styles. I have a lot of rosettes to make!



Colette




Willow



I will be working my fingers to the bone these next couple of weeks. I have to. Usually, when I set up for shows, I fill the my display with items, but then I also have a tote bag full of other ones that I put out as room opens up. By the end of Sunday, I only had a few necklaces left in that bag. Scary! On a good note though, there are certain ones that I would never put out because they weren't really my favorite. Selling so much forced me to put them out, and low and behold, they sold! My husband would just laugh because he would grab one out of the bag to display, I would make a face like, "ew, I don't like that one," and then 5 minutes later someone would come and buy it.

Physically, the weekend was a little tough for me. It started off with me losing my grip while carrying my large display shelf, causing the corner of it to hit right above me knee. Ouch! It's not really heavy, but it must have hit it just right, because I immediately had a bump, and it turned black and blue pretty quickly. Today, it is a lovely mixture of purple, yellow, and green (Mardi Gras!)
I am 6 months pregnant now, and being on my feet so much gets a little tough. My feet and ankles are still super swollen (and quite unattractive). Also, we were in a little bit of a tough spot from a sun standpoint. The sun poured into my booth and was very very hot. And of course, I forgot sunscreen, so I am now sporting a nice famer's tan on my left arm. If I would have been a couple of booths down, I would have been in the shade almost all day with the temperature about 10 degrees cooler. Instead, we didn't get shade until about 5:00. I have never done well with sun/ heat, so there was one point Saturday when I had to grab my chair and find a shady spot to sit in for about a half hour or so. That was a lifesaver. I didn't want to keel over in front of customers ...might scare them away.

When all was said and done, I was only a few dollars away from this being my best show ever. Wow. Thank you Green Bay!! And in these last couple days, I have already gotten a few follow up emails from customers requesting custom orders. Now I only hope I can get into the show next year again. Cross your fingers for me!


My booth on Saturday morning



Lake Geneva Art in the Park

Wow, what a weekend! I participated in Lake Geneva's Art in the Park this Saturday and Sunday. It was my first show in Lake Geneva, so I was crossing my fingers that it would be successful. The forecast for Saturday was rainy, so according to the radar, we had until about noon before the rain would takeover. Rainy days suck, but there is nothing you can do.

When my husband and I arrived Saturday morning to set up, we were pretty impressed with the setting. The park was overlooking Geneva Lake, which was gorgeous (picture sailboats and a ferry). I should've taken a picture, but with the threat of rain Saturday, I didn't want to risk bringing my camera (and Sunday, I just plain forgot it.) Set-up was a breeze (something I am always worried about when doing a new show), although I was not prepared when people started coming into my booth to shop at 9:30 (show started at 10:00). I should have planned for that given the casual park setting, but it still "erks" me a little when this happens. I was trying to get all my jewelry set up and then was torn with, "Do I stop, move everything out of the way and let these people look? or do I just ignore them and keep setting up as fast as possible?" I kind of did both. Oh well...I'll just have to give myself some extra time next year.

The show started off great. I think people who were there Saturday morning were on a mission and ready to buy. I think the threat of rain also increased the sense of urgency for shoppers to get there early and make their purchases. I couldn't believe my sales in the first 2 hours...and the sales came so easily. Nobody was really doing the, "I'll think about it and maybe come back" routine, which was really refreshing.

Before you knew it, the sky got dark and the rain started. But looking at the radar, it looked like most of it was actually going to miss us. Most of the heavy storms were to the east and north of us. It really only rained for about 20-30 minutes max, and it was not a heavy downpour. We really lucked out. The day ended up being really good weather wise...I would take days like that over the 90 degrees and humid days. There was a beautiful breeze (not too strong) off the lake, and we were really lucky to have our booth shaded by a large tree. The afternoon sales were a little slower, but still steady. My sales goal for the entire weekend was already met by the end of day Saturday.

Coming into this weekend, I was a little bummed that I would have to miss Elkhorn's flea market on Sunday due the the art show. I was in pretty desperate need of "new" supplies to get me inspired. When my husband and I were discussing it on Saturday, we realized that we actually had the perfect opportunity to do both. Elkhorn was on our way to Lake Geneva, and the flea market opened at 7:00 (Art in the Park opened at 10:00 again). Also, the fact that we were able to leave our booths up overnight made the set up Sunday much less time-consuming. We figured we had about an hour and a half to run through the flea market before having to leave for Lake Geneva. We were there when the gates opened, and tried to stay focused on finding jewelry (we got sidetracked a few times). We kinda split up and didn't waste time negotiating with the dealers who were overpriced. There were so many cool items for our house were were ignoring, which pained us, but we were so limited on time, we just had to keep moving. I have to say, in the short time we had, I think I bought almost as much as I did when were were there in May. I made some great deals. I got several very nice pieces, but then I also got a bunch of what I refer to as "dirty rhinestones." They just need a little extra attention and repair.

Elkhorn goodies

Elkhorn goodies

So after that brief detour, we headed back to Lake Geneva for Day 2 of Art in the Park, still excited about our purchases and whirlwind of a morning. Sales were very slow Sunday morning. Compared to the first two hours of Saturday, I had maybe 1/10th the sales. I kept a pretty good attitude though, because like I said, I had already exceeded my sales goal for the weekend, so Sunday was like a "bonus" day in my mind. Again, weather was really nice. Not too hot, not too cold, with a nice relaxing breeze coming off the lake. Sales did pick up in the afternoon, and I had a couple of large multiple-item sales that really helped. By the end of Sunday, I had enough sales to make this my second-best show ever. I couldn't have asked for much better than that.

This was a wonderful show for me (thank you Lake Geneva and GLAA). I was so happy with every aspect of it (from how the show was organized, to the type of customers who came, to the beautiful lakeside setting). It was really more of a fine art show, so the other vendors were of very high caliber (in fact, I was honored to be among them), and the customers who came really appreciated the work and were willing to pay for it. I had several people comment on how reasonable my prices were, and the fact that people so willingly opened up their wallets showed me they felt the same. I was used to working a lot harder for my sales and having many more smaller sales add up to the grand total. A lot of my more expensive items sold quickly. People wanted the pieces that were more of a statement and more artsy.  I would LOVE to do this show again. It is juried, so there are no guarantees that I will get accepted next year. I am crossing my fingers that I do!

Sorry for the lack of pictures and stories. There weren't really any crazy/funny happenings to write about. Other than a couple of women who really should have been wearing bras (and weren't) and a parade of about 50-75 cool mo-peds that drove by, it was a pretty uneventful and lovely weekend. I am dragging a little today. With the pregnancy, I haven't been sleeping that well and can't refuel with caffeine, but I have to suck it up and keep going. I have Artstreet in Green Bay in 2 weeks (and Cedarburg's Harvest Fest 3 weeks after that) and am seriously lacking inventory. Back to work!