Leeper Park Art Fair 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: $55.00 - $235.00
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
2-3 times
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 3-5 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 2
Location: 3
Facilities: 2
Ease of Participating: 2
Sales: 2
Overall: 2
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 501 - 2,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
This show has been sponsored by the SJ Valley Watercolor Society for 49 years. It is a long established show that was a gem in a community of about 100K people. The park where the show takes place is near downtown.

It is a two day show with Friday afternoon/evening setup. Artists are allowed to drive to their booth space and unload/load.

There is ample room behind and along side the tents. There are no bad booth spaces due to an inner circle and outer circle.

Advertising and news coverage was good weeks/days before the show. However, mentioning bathrooms available in the TV ads did cause me to take pause.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
This year the show felt "tired/shabby" and lacking any direction/attention from the show director. There were more than 5 empty spaces (no shows) which left other artists looking like a 7 year old's smile.

The artist breakfast offered prepackaged powdered donuts. There was a port-a-potty placed directly behind an artist's booth. Mind you this is a large park.

There was no artist name on the booth sign, just a number. There were no volunteers coming by to offer assistance. Jurors (same as last year) for the awards came by the booth about an hour before the show closed on Saturday. No surprise that several committee members won awards.

Attendance was down from past years perhaps due to the heat or the road construction that limited access to the park and to parking. That did seem to reduce the strollers and dog walkers.

One good move was the show committee did arrange for shuttles. Can't imagine what attendance would have been like without the shuttles since it was real low this year.

Although I did about average for a 2 day show, I was the exception and lucky to get a 500.00 sale 15 minutes before the close on Sunday and I slept in my own bed.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
The application process is very clumsy. The application is on Entrythingy. You have to print off your photos/application and send your paper check to the director which doesn't get cashed for several months; making you wonder if the snail mail found it's way to the right person.

There is little/no communication until the bitter end when your booth fee is due within weeks. This would not be a show I would travel (more than a few hours) to do unless changes are made to improve the process, appearance, care for the artists and quality of the show overall, not to mention attendance and sales.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
It is my opinion that this is one of those shows that needs to stop resting on their past laurels and the fact that it has been around for 49 years and upgrade how they run the show and who is invited to the show. A fresh/modern approach would do wonders to improve this show.

Posted by: Jeri Vitello | 06/28/2016 at 12:26 AM

Medium: Fiber
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2015
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $2001-$5000
Price Range of your Work: 55.00-235.00
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) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 4
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
This is a local show for me. I have been a patron of this show for close to 20 years. This is my first year as an artist.

There were approx. 120 artist in the park. There is an outer ring and an inner ring with generous space in between tents and very ample space behind the tents. There are no bad booth locations.

Very easy set up and tear down; you can drive to your booth location. My sales were good; about 8x booth fee. I saw more people carrying packages than not.

This is not necessarily a destination art show, but the locals support it as they have for 48 years.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
The application process could be improved upon. They use EntryThingy for their application site, then paper and check remittance for the booth fee.

In my opinion, there are better ways to manage this process.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: Check it out.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Very pleased I was accepted to participate. Grateful to those who purchased my handwoven creations. Hope to do the show next year.

Wonderful to see several of my artist friends from other shows.

Posted by: Jeri Vitello | 07/05/2015 at 11:52 PM

Show Name: Leeper Park Art Fair
City and State: South Bend, IN
Your Medium: Printmaking
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: 10+ times!
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 4
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: Well run show, nice shaded park in good condition, Friday setup, good security, great advertising, postcards for mailing list, easy in and out, close parking including for RVs, free hot breakfast both days, booth sitters, free cold bottled water, crowds not heavy but they were buying.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: It ALWAYS rains at Leeper Park! Light rain all day Saturday this year.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:Setup is on grass, not always perfectly even.

Additional Commentary on this Show (or about this form):I did Talbot Street last weekend and had my best sales in 5 years. This week at Leeper beat that by several hundred $$, despite the rain and lighter crowds.

Posted by: Joan Tweedell | 07/09/2013 at 10:27 PM

Show Name: Leeper Park Art Fair
City and State: South Bend, IN
Your Medium: Printmaking
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2012
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 10+ times!
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 4
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: Well run, nice park, decent artist amenities, good advertising including onsite TV reporting, good crowds, excellent sales on Saturday, crowds and sales less on Sunday. Very good quality art, good variety. The director, Judy Ladd, in on site and on top of any problems. This year (2012) at Leeper I had my best sales of any show since 2008.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: Park was dry thanks to weeks of no rain, so was dusty, and recent tree removal left holes, although park dept. staff was as helpful as they could afford to be, given funding cuts.

Additional Commentary on this Show (or about this form): Applications are online with Entrythingy.

Posted by: Joan Tweedell | 07/04/2012 at 10:23 AM

Ref: Leeper Park Show
What about security? Are there guards on the grounds overnight?
Thanks for your response.

Posted by: Dana Dabagia | 01/29/2012 at 12:24 PM

Show Name: Leeper Park Art Fair
City and State: South Bend, Indiana
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) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 2
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 5001-20,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Easy load in/load out. Pull trailer right to back of booth. Can setup afternoon before, plenty of time.
Convenient overnight trailer parking.
Excellent venue and customer flow, no dead-end booths.
Enthusiastic crowd, interested in the arts.
No competition with sponsors, very well-juried.
True fine arts fair--no band, no carnival or kids activities, no wine tasting. Just art and a few food booths (typical fair food.except for the fresh walleye stand.)
Staff was attentive to needs, available, easy to work with.
Generous prize money--total of $3500.
Good mix of art media.
Home cooked breakfasts--Saturday biscuits and gravy, Sunday egg casserole plus. Water provided.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Not as much spending as in previous years, per other artists who have done show several years.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Have wide variety of price points. Lower priced items sold much better than big ticket.

All sites are on grass, be prepared to level tent. Be prepared for rain with properly weighted tents and ability to keep items off the ground.
Have ability to ventilate booth if possible--keep an open air flow/use battery operated fans.

Best for regional artists.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Saturday had sporadic thunderstorms. Great crowd in morning, but afternoon rains kept people away.
Sunday--great weather, sunny with some cloud cover, hot and humid, typical for Indiana, didn't keep people away.

Posted by: Bo Mackison | 06/25/2011 at 06:08 PM

Show Name: Leeper Park Art Fair
City and State: South Bend, IN
Your Medium: Printmaking
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: 10+ times!
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 2
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 5001-20,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Beautiful shady park. exhibitor-friendly. Good crowds, great advertising. High quality art, well balanced assortment of fine arts.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Sales were not up to previous year's. Award jurors were oddly biased in favor of jewelry. A couple of likely buy-sell exhibitors sneaked in.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Avant-guarde art doesn't do well here. Sales are usually good, let's hope that this year was a fluke.

Posted by: Joan Tweedell | 06/25/2011 at 05:55 PM

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