Royal Oak Clay, Glass, and Metal Show Reviews..

Show Name: Royal Oak Clay Glass and Metal Show
City and State: Royal Oak MI
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: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 4
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: Not really sure.

Good Things about this Art Fair:
I liked that this show specializes in specific media. I felt a much larger percentage of visitors were interested in glass than in a regular show. Also, the producer was great... very artist friendly.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
I would have liked to see more high quality glass artists.

Posted by: Paul Messink | 07/20/2011 at 04:36 PM

Show Name: Royal Oak Clay Glass and Metal Show
City and State: Royal Oak, Michigan
Your Medium: Metal
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: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-25,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Concentrates on just three mediums' work in many different ways, metal, glass and clay.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Not enough advertising could be seen.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
I sold most of my higher end items. The crowd was there and buying but not like "in the good old days" as was stated from the longer attending artists. Come with a varity of prices. The people liked watching me work on my art.

Posted by: Kathryn Looby | 07/02/2011 at 11:53 AM

Show Name: Royal Oak Clay Glass and Metal
City and State: Royal Oak, MI
Your Medium: Metal
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: 2-3 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
This is my third year doing this show, I like the way you get juried in for three years. Friendly promoter and staff. They listen and assist you. Plenty of water servers.

One of the few shows that I demo and I had a very large area to work in. I liked the new lay out this year where I was located towards fourth street end. The crowd is very friendly and all ages. They give out multiple awards.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Set up this year was terrible. I got there at start time but took 40 minutes before I was parked. More staff to help with directing folks to park for more efficiency would be nice.

I parked 5 booths down from my space so it would give me room to unload since I have a trailer with a drop down tailgate. Problem though some guy thought he needed to park his van across the street and backed up to his space, which blocked any way to walk by. So I had to move to another couple of booths down to have room.

I missed breakfast. Time was posted as 9:30 to 10:30 and I got there at 10:00 and wasn't any thing to eat except some apple slices. Thank goodness there was coffee. It took me 15 minutes to go around the block a few times to park where I had permit. Actually was a good spot.

Something they also need to look at is the condition of the street. It was cracked up really bad in my area, folks were stumbling on the unevenness. Also was hard to set up pedestals because so rough.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Work with the other artist around you when setting up. Previous years I got there early and we all were talking about how to park for unloading. Did not seem to happen this year and very unorganized.

Bring your shims, the road has a lot of crown, 6 inches difference from back to front of booth. You must like dogs because there are plenty.

Remember this is only a three medium show so you will have plenty of your same medium set up around you.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Seemed like the crowd was a lot smaller this year on Sunday. Yes it was a little chilly out but not a bad day. Not sure if they had TV on the spot Sunday morning.

One thing I noticed more this year is the increase of jewelry. Since this show is basically three mediums (clay, glass, metal) I would like to see just 2D or 3D items and not jewelry. If jewelry stays then they should be in one of those three media and not a mixed bag of items.

Posted by: Warren Townsend | 07/01/2011 at 07:59 PM

Show Name: Royal Oak Clay Glass and Metal
City and State: Royal Oak, Michigan
Your Medium: Jewelry
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) 3
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 4
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 5001-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Please note I'm bad at estimating attendance. I don't know if I'm even close.

I exhibited at Royal Oak Clay Glass and Metal for my third year in a row this past weekend. I think the weather affected the show on Saturday. Rain was expected, though it did not rain (just a brief sprinkle). It started out cold, but the weather got hot and looked threatening, but no rain to speak of on Saturday.

My sales were down from the Saturdays of previous years, but my sales were up on Sunday compared to previous years. This is a very pleasant show. Overall, my sales were only a bit down from the previous two years and fall within the range expected for a show this size.

This show has a loyal following and is very artist friendly - lots of volunteers offering water and iced tea and booth sitting. This show has a policy of jurying every third year, which gave me security and an opportunity to develop a customer base.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Load in can be a little tricky (maybe just for my particular location), but it is suggested that you get there early and find a parking space before the streets close, that is, close to your booth.

I've done that in previous years with better results. I couldn't get there early enough this year so I had to dolly my stuff in. Just prepare for that and you'll be fine.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
There is a loyal following so sending out emails prior to the show is effective.

The website for this show is actually the Chamber's site and there is sufficient info regarding the show and does give a PDF listing participating artists, but maybe having its own website would be helpful and allow for better marketing of the show and its artists.

I could not find a FB page for this show. This has been an effective way of marketing other shows. Maybe they can consider it for next year.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Again, I am not good at estimating attendance. Attendance seemed down on Saturday from previous years, but Sunday was probably about the same as previous years. I have no idea if I've estimated correctly.

Posted by: Kristin Perkins | 06/14/2011 at 05:19 PM

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