9/27/06 - Picking the Right Art Show
I learned something valuable this past weekend when I set up our booth at the Michigan Fiber Festival.
My "most valuable lesson learned" this year was that this particular show caters to do-it-your-selfers and in two days there I was able to fill an upcoming workshop of "Making Nature Scrolls" - one costing $60.00 for the class plus $10.00 for materials. Students were willing to pay $70.00 to learn how to make the scroll but would not pay $35.00 for a pre-made one. Hum.... (Another case of willing to pay for the "experience.")
In the past four years that I've set up at the Fiber Festival I've focused on 1) making immediate sales and 2) getting people directed to the gallery. In the first year that strategy worked just fine. I made nice sales and Gene saw an increase in traffic at the gallery and also made several nice sales there as well. B-U-T Gas was not $3.00+ a gallon that year.
This year the rules of the game were quite different.
I knew that folks were not coming to the gallery that same weekend as they had been previously. Michigan's tough economic times and high gas prices had put a damper on just casually taking a drive out to the gallery. I had already determined that I needed to go to them, instead. The challenge is how to do that while maintaining BCA shop hours....
Former gallery owner, Barb Bare of Foxglove Studio, found the answer for her was to leave the Blue Coast Artists group so that she did not have to maintain regular weekend shop hours and could begin to sell her flowers, art and wool fleeces at the farmers markets.
In spite of the tight economy, I found that Fiber Festival shoppers were still buying yarn by the bag-full but not so many high-quality wood $595.00 spinning wheels as last year. Conversations with the long time vendors gleaned that "when time are hard folks are no longer go places. When folks stay home they start to find themselves with time on their hands and want to use that time - and their skills - making craft items." Ergo... yarn was selling big time.
So the Big Picture Lesson here is how to read the roadmap and change lanes quickly enough to get to the desired destination before the competition does.
INTERIOR VISION: "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside awakes." Carl Jung
