Omaha Summer Arts Festival Reviews..

Medium: Fiber
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2016
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Price Range of your Work: $50 - $230
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 2-3 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 2
Location: 3
Facilities: 5
Ease of Participating: 5
Sales: 2
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Great unload times/staggering so all are not there at once.

Needed information sent before the show, so I could be well prepared.

Booth sitter, lunch, snacks, helpful, inside restrooms and area for vendors to cool off....all great.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Weather was hot (100 degrees+) this time around. And on pavement. Nothing they can do about that. :) This is what prevented sales/ attendance.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
May apply again. Just not crazy about being on pavement.

Posted by: Connie Mueller | 07/14/2016 at 06:34 PM

Show Name: Omaha Summer Arts Festival
City and State: Omaha, NE
Your Medium: Digital Art
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2013
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $5001-$10,000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 2-3 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 4
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 5 (great)
Overall: 5 (great)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Great
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: You can pull right next to your space for load in/out. Artist amenities and treatment are excellent. Good flow of customers throughout the entire show.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: Wind and rain can get nasty, its Nebraska. Parking on Friday can be challenging due to the downtown environment.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: My price range is from $25-$250. I don't move a lot of items over $125. However, in both 2011 & 2012 I did well over 100 transactions per show.

Additional Commentary on this Show:This is an ideal show for me, minus the long drive. I travel from Phoenix to do it, along with a few other midwest shows. Easy setup/teardown, great staff and lots of foot traffic. 2013 had rain about 40% of the show, but customers were still out buying.

Posted by: Joey Welsh | 07/12/2013 at 01:04 AM

Show Name: Omaha Summer Arts Festival
City and State: Omaha, NE
Your Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2012
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: < $500
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 1 (poor)
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: Everything the show promoter does is good, amenities, ease of load in/out, quality (this year)

Bad Things about this Art Fair: Hot, Humid, low sales volume, Low end consumers.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: Don't drive far for this one.

For more of my commentary on this show please click on my name below to visit my blog on ArtFairInsiders.com.

Posted by: S Brian Berkun | 06/15/2012 at 03:22 AM

Show Name: Omaha summer art fest
City and State: Omaha NE
Your Medium: Painting
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2011
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 5-10 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 2
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: A very artist friendly show, They give you lunch, have artist hospitality, they treat you good. The promoter has artist advisors so he stays in touch with what's going on.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: They moved the date of the show so it competes with better shows during the weekend. The show used to be during the college baseball tournament and I think that brought in some good customers .
Last year was the first year of the new date so the jury is still out, I did okay but it's a funny crowd I think it takes a couple years for them to see you before they consider buying.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: One thing about the show is the weather , it can be very hot and stormy, My booth was flattened by a 80 mph wide one year, they do come around and inspect your booth, One thing they do and I wish more shows would is they provide 70 lb sand bags to weight your booth

Posted by: John Booth | 01/29/2012 at 02:57 PM

Show Name: Omaha Summer Arts Festival
City and State: Omaha, NB
Your Medium: Glass
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2011
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $2001-$5000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 2-3 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 5 (great)
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 4
Overall: 5(great)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: Not really sure.

Good Things about this Art Fair: Cannot say enough great things about this art fair. I have done shows where the promoters treat the artists well, but I've never seen anything like these promoters. Total first class all the way. Wonderful breakfast, facilities, and most important, awards! They are constantly looking for ideas and thoughts from the artists and are seriously looking to make this the best show. All the hotels are w/i walking distance of the show so setup and takedown is a breeze. There are plenty of police and volunteers to keep the cars moving in and out. I could not accurately estimate an attendance but it is always busy. There was always a steady stream of people. Hard to get to the facilities! Wonderful entertainment including the renowned "Brule" music group. You have to give it a try!

Bad Things about this Art Fair: Really hard to think of anything. Possibly the ONLY thing would be the heat. One side of the show is in shade and the other, across the street is more in total sun, so if you can't handle the heat, ask for a booth in the shade.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: It's a "sleeper" show for sure. You can tell that the people there are true art lovers and support the arts whole-heartedly. Easy drive as well.

Additional Commentary on this Show (or about this form): Great downtown which is right around the corner, and my favorite Farmer's Market ever on Sunday.

For more of my commentary on this show please click on my name below to visit my blog on ArtFairInsiders.com.

Posted by: Alison Fox | 01/29/2012 at 12:55 PM

Show Name: Omaha Summer Arts Festival
City and State: Omaha, NE
Your Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2011
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 4
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 2
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 50,001-100,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
This is a very well run, artist friendly show. The volunteers and staff treat you well, offering lots of amenities and free awards breakfast on Saturday morning.

Attendance was solid, with the exception of Friday morning. Set-up and tear down are easy as the streets are wide enough to allow everyone to pull up close to their booth.

Booths are also wider than normal with most 12-13' wide and 2' of storage behind the booth (though most artists use more than that behind them and the show didn't say anything about it).

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Poor sales were the only major bad thing about this show. In my opinion, the show is a day too long at 3 days and should only be 2 days, as most everyone said that Sunday is the best day for sales and that Friday, don't be surprised if you don't sell much or anything at all.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
It's a high quality show and they treat you well here. That being said, I certainly did not see strong sales, though I had a lot of interest. Most people were just taking cards 'for later', which I don't understand, because when is there a better chance to buy art in Omaha?!?!

Another note: On my way to the show Thursday, the water pump went out on my van, stranding me about 70 miles east of the show. I called the director and she was very understanding and accomodating, and allowed me to set-up during the show on Friday evening, once my repairs were completed. There was an army of volunteers to help me unload!

I'm still not sure if I will come back to this one, as the total expenses end up being high for the mediocre sales that I experienced. Most other artists I talked to had a down show in 2011 as well, despite very good weather and great attendance.

Posted by: Ryan Tischer | 06/17/2011 at 12:18 PM

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