Delray Affair Reviews.

This was also our first time at the Delray Affair and we also had the most horrific experience we have had in the six years we have been doing art and craft shows. Each piece of our work is a handcrafted one of a kind. Despite the rules, it is indeed one big flea market with buy/sell everywhere. The majority of the art/craft section was taken up by Geico Insurance! The layout was awful, there is no check-in or registration so no one had any idea what was going on with empty booth spaces. There is zero support for vendors and they are treated like crap despite the $600 booth fee. Our booth was in the Old School Park which was a desert wasteland. It was so dirty, disgusting and out of the way that by the end of the first day not a single customer had even walked by. We were staying in a hotel, could not afford to lose any more money and were forced to leave after the first day. The Chamber representatives on site agreed that all of our concerns were legitimate but wrung their hands and stated there was nothing they could do. They contract with the Festival Management Group who, as another person stated "refused to show their faces". This was an epic rip-off of criminal proportions. It's like we were sold swamp land in Florida! For those who were on Atlantic Avenue, I'm sure it was a great show. For those in the Old School Park ( and many left like we did)it was nothing but a greedy scam on unsuspecting artists and the criminals behind it refuse to accept responsibility.

Posted by: Carol Herndon | 04/29/2015 at 11:54 AM

We attended this show as first-timers and had a completely horrific experience from start to finish. The attraction for us was the attendance figures advertised. HUGE mistake. We were placed in a black dust park completely removed from the main drag with no direct visibility and NO signage directing flow to our pit. (We were told that the signs were "lost"!) The traffic count in our area never rose to 25,000 for the entire three days, not even worth attending as a walker, let alone as a vendor paying an exorbitant booth fee! Additionally, the place was crawling with buy-sell and commercial booths, and every artist in our area was furious. After speaking to a local disheartened artist who had been exhibiting for many years, I learned that the show has been in drastic decline for artists since the death of a beloved local organizer, who was responsible for the loveliness that used to exist for artists. In the past few years since, it has become a thing of greed, not pride, which accounts for the crap vending you now see alongside and all around the art. There are no exhibitor perks for your $500+ investment, (there was rumored to be some donuts somewhere.....) RV parking is extremely limited and fills up fast, at which point, you're on your own in a city with no good options, and the organizers never show their faces as an act of goodwill. (They even flatly refused to meet with us upon request.) The show is simply too big for it's britches and the organizers should be ashamed of themselves for misleading unsuspecting newcomers into thinking that they will actually be included in the show, since in fact, they will be duped into paying dearly to lose money and heart outside the main event. En masse , we artists should make a protest statement with our refusal to attend Howard Alan shows. They make a fortune off our art while we whimper and beg for consideration. Screw dat!

Posted by: Karen Armstrong | 05/04/2014 at 08:37 PM

Show Name: Delray Affair
City and State: Delray Beach Florida
Your Medium: 3D mixed media
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2013
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 3-5 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 3
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 1 (poor)
Sales: 3
Overall: 1 (poor)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Once you get settled in, there is a good crowd. Friday is not too busy but Saturday and Sunday were very good.I took second place in the mixed media category. there is no money for this ...just a big PINK ribbon.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
This show is BADLY run.4 years in a row somebody was already set up in one of my double booth spots! Last year they put "window treatment"construction company two booths down from me. All that did was piss everybody off because they were like used car salesmen chasing after people.they made our customers quickly walk away from our area. Then, behind me was a guy and his wife that were selling "junk" metal garden animals from Mexico and selling them dirt cheap.Extremely obvious non-artists.

I was told once again that The Delray Affair would not allow this garbage in their art show but for the fourth year in a row it still persists. It's a shame that they absolutely don't care about real artists. I for one will never waste time doing that show. Four years in a row was enough.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
If you sell buy/sell crap you will like this show. If you are a real artist....avoid this.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Parking is a major nightmare as well. Not for the patrons, but without a doubt for the artists you can expect a long walk to whatever vehicle you drove.

Posted by: Kevin Doyle | 05/01/2014 at 08:24 PM

I participated in the Delray Affair show for several years. Last year (2011) I did not participate because I was disgusted with the 2010 state of affairs: Over 600 exhibitors, way too much buy-sell which led to an overall "flea-market" effect, way too much competition for sales, which resulted in lower sales than in previous years. I complained about all of that in the critique after the show, and they said (in what seemed like a very sincere tone) they were going to seriously address those concerns by 1) strictly eliminating and enforcing the "no buy-sell" rule, and 2) reducing the quantity of exhibitors in order to focus more on quality. Well, by the sound of things, they did not live up to those promises, and now I am horified to see that they expect over 800 exhibitors this year. So, I guess this event is turning into "the world's biggest flea-market" after all. As a fine artist, I would not recommend this show because it is too much expense, labor, time and effort for absolutely no return.

Posted by: Jaimie | 02/27/2012 at 10:55 AM

Show Name: Delray Affair
City and State: Delray Beach, FL
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: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 5 (great)
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 100,000+ people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Number of visitors.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
While there were tons of people, I would say that less than 5% were serious art buyers. I think this is due to the diminishing reputation of the show over the last 10 years.

Bad flow of visitors- poor signage directing them to the fine art section. Mixing fine art and crafts with lots of shlocky stuff and buy-sell vendors.

The event's reputation has plumetted in the past few years and fewer really good artists are participating (I didn't see a single top-notch ceramic artist, for example).

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
I am going to give it another try next year. We (artists) were hand-delivered a very nice letter on Sunday morning stating the event's committment to addressing all the issues raised by the artists.

These include "site plan changes, space assignemnt changes, redesign of applications and elimination of inappropriate products." I believe they are sincere and want to turn this event around and return it to its status as a really great show.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
The new area of Old School Square area is an excellent venue for fine arts and crafts- I am optimistic that it will be even better if they can once again attract some really good artists.

Posted by: Martha Quigley | 04/20/2011 at 08:56 PM

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