Jekyll Island Wild Shrimp & Grits Festival Reviews.

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2018
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: < $500
Price Range of your Work: $30 - $695
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 3-5 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 4
Location: 5
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 1
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 10,001 - 50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
It's well organized and run, the director is very good about communicating everything you need to know.

The venue is beautiful, a mix of shade and sun, among beautiful oak trees, lots of room behind booths, etc.

What could this Art Fair have done better?:
There aren't really any artist amenities. Having booth sitters available would have been nice. They had plenty of volunteers running around, but nobody really checking on the artists (until they wanted the Sunshine Artist survey filled out, of course!).

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Keep in mind this is a food/music festival with an art component. They do a good job of keeping the food/drink and art sections separate though. The art section is a mix of fine art and fine craft all jumbled together. Lower price points do much better here.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
The show was cancelled in 2017 due to Hurricane Irma and this year was threatened by Hurricane Florence (which steered clear, thankfully).

I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but some of the artists I spoke with who had done the show before said sales were definitely down.

It was ridiculously hot all weekend! I unfortunately didn't do well enough to consider trying it again.

Posted by: Karen Kurta | 10/04/2018 at 05:23 PM

Medium: Jewelry
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2016
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $2001-$5000
Price Range of your Work: $10-$350
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) 5
Location: 5
Facilities: 5
Ease of Participating: 5
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Beautiful setting. Load in & out was easy. Sales were good for me. Very accommodating staff & volunteers. The food was amazing!

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Late night Friday & very long show hours on Saturday. Another show where judges will just walk past you. The amazing food ruined my diet!

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
I did pretty well at this show & had a few friends who also did well. However, a few other artists I know did terribly. Another jeweler near me who has gone there for many years had her worst year ever. The artist next to me hardly sold anything and nothing framed (and he is a very successful & talented artist).

I was assuming that the crowd would be a lot of the high end buyers that I know from the St. Simons shows, but a lot people were just there to eat, drink, and stroll. I think if you have a price point under a hundred bucks you can do fairly well (I think I was just under 4k). I sold $60 items like crazy.

I live fairly close & we stayed in our camper so it was well worth it for me.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Overall it was not my best show, but certainly not my worst.

Posted by: Megan Peterson | 12/18/2016 at 12:13 AM

Show Name: Jekyll Island Wild Shrimp and Grits Festival
City and State: * Jekyll Island, GA
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: 2-3 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 5 (great)
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
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: * Great location. Good selection of artists. Promoters who care and know what they are doing. Patrons that appreciate and will purchase.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: The Shrimp and Grits are too good to pass up! Nothing bad. It was all good.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: It is well worth it all the way around.

Additional Commentary on this Show (or about this form):
Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sing…
The Jekyll Island Wild Shrimp and Grits Festival in South Georgia was a resounding success. This was their 7th year and if holding an event at the historic Millionaire’s Village sounds profitable you are correct. This was the most profitable event in my four years of participating in arts and crafts festivals. Our neighbor and new friend Trey Hoper of Hoper’s Handmades said he took in three times what he got last year. He also took Best in Category for the second year in a row. He and I were happy as I got Best in Category for my photography. Ms. Annette and Dave’s Vintage Tins were also doing brisk business. They were happy enough with their sales that they plan to be back in the same spot next year. Jim and Eddye Conner (braided and woven gold and silver jewelry) commented about the nice set up. I agree. Nancy King-Rowan and her team of volunteers work very hard to make sure load in is smooth and easy with drive in to your space on a scheduled bas is. And the warm welcome continued with ongoing visits to see how things were and looking for suggestions. People come for miles for the amazing shrimp and grits, music and quality arts and crafts. Although there are a variety of booths the organizers do a great job of placing the fine arts and quality crafts along paths under the stately live oaks. Commercial and non-profits are located in other very nice common areas. Attendees? A great turnout included quality buyers. Would I do this show again – in a heartbeat! Although a smaller show, it is definitely one worth considering.
Will you hear from me again? Definitely. I have been lurking on this site for about a year. Very rarely have I seen any reports from Georgia. We have some great shows and wonderful artists. Our next show will be the Glynn Art in the Park on St. Simons Island, GA. This will be our first time at Glynn. I’ll let you know how it goes…

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

Posted by: Maryllis Wolfgang | 11/28/2011 at 11:43 PM

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