Categories

« Powderhorn Art Fair Reviews.. | Main | HotWorks.org Estero Fine Art Show & Taste Fest (Winter) Reviews.. »

Comments

Tom Hite

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2010
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: < $500
Price Range of your Work: $0 - $10
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
10+ times!
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: Forever...
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 1 (poor)
Location: 1 (poor)
Facilities: 1 (poor)
Ease of Participating: 1 (poor)
Sales: 1 (poor)
Overall: 1 (poor)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: under 500 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Nothing!
All artist are from out of town.
No local artists. Hot sweltering parking lot.
No shade.

What could this Art Fair have done better?:
The show should be located on one of the many wonderful parks West Bloomfield has to offer. Like Dodge park by Hiller road. Plenty of parking, shade and green space.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Dont go.

Contact HotWorks and try to get them to move it.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
All the businesses nearby have to close because of the traffic and parking problems created by this show.

West Bloomfield plaza business owners have pleaded with HotWorks for years to have the show anywhere else to try and reduce the thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Especially, import this with small businesses struggling after covid.

Wendy/Pete Brodick

Show Name: Orchard lake fine art show
City and State: Orchard lake MI
Your Medium: Sculpture
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: 5-10 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:
This show is exciting! The show is in an area that is up on style and class, and really the people who come are super excited to let loose and dig deep into their wallets to buy art. No "Be-backers or card collectors". The show draws a crowd we respect and is intellgent, many are Dr.s , Lawyers, Decorators, or other respected proffessional people. We always feel good when our Art lands in these up-scale homes. Many yrs. we get re-peat business, this is a committed group of Art buyers, and they bring their clients or friends year after year making the show grow and grow.
The show has a festive feel with a strong touch of elegance. The promotor and staff think of everything to accomidate the artist while keeping the show a clean, classy,upscale,quality run event, in other words, NO JUNK sold here. All the artists are selected with care and it shows. We feel honored to be a part of the event, and it is always exciting to do, rain or shine, the people come ready to shop. We always sell well and always wish we had more art because some times, like this year, we have more than one person wanting the same item at the same time, which is always fun (for the arist).
This is the best show we do. I was raised near by, so I know that the homes are full of art lovers near by, so its a sure shot if you have good quality art to sell, there will be buyers all 3 days. I usually bring my very best to this show. Remember, not only does this crowd love to spend money, they also want to be entertained, meaning humor, a smile and fresh short conversation never hurts to add to your booth.
We really like how attentive the staff is to what is going on and is very aware of the importance of keeping things up-to-date and tasteful. You will never see cheap out of place art or "Non-Artt" for sale here, rules are in place and easy to follow, because, they just make good common sense to protect the artist.
All I can say, is this is a great show and if you are ready for a good time, and ready to make money in a STRESS-LESS enviornment, with thoughtful touches added, you will love Orchard Lake Fine Art Show.
The show continues to put out !!!

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
I wish every show we did was run this well, and was so easy to be a part of. THERE ARE NO BAD THINGS ABOUT THIS SHOW

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Bring your best art, Dress your best, be polite and atentive to your customers needs. Listen well, be there early on Saturday morning customers will be ready to shop .

Aron Lowe

Show Name: Orchard Lake Fine Art Show
City and State: Orchard Lake, Michigan
Your Medium: Fiber
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) 5 (great)
Location: 2
Facilities: 2
Ease of Participating: 2
Sales: 1 (poor)
Overall: 1 (poor)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: Clean port o potties that always had toilet paper, maybe we're even emptied each night?, and a pump sink with soap next to them, cake and various nicer pastries served on Sunday, seemed like they did advertise it a lot. There were a lot if people there at all times, even traditional slow times for art fairs: 1-4pm.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: The bad absolutely outweighed the good. First there were too few people working the set up, and the ones that were could not tell me where to go or how to get around blockades. There was a check in car that we just happened upon, but if you were looking for it you wouldn't find it because it was parked down a kind of alley behind a large van. The woman working the check in was very confused too and disorganized. She gave the man in front of me the wrong folder twice. And no one checked IDs. The location is terrible. The name Orchard Lake made me think it would be In a nice park on a lake, but instead it was in a cheap strip mall parkway. All the new people are put down at the end of the show so by the time people got down to our booths they were tired and hot and had spent any big bucks they were going to spend. So usually those spots change over a lot. And all the awards went to the other end of the show. I also wonder if it is such a great show, then why do they have so many booths taken up by sponsors and two booths with people playing dulcimers and selling CDs? If it really was such a top show they would be full up with really good artists booths and have a waiting list. There were a lot of people walking around at all times of the show, but not buying anything down at the end of the show where I was except some $1 toe rings and two for $10 ankle bracelets which must have been buy/ sell at that price. There were no artist meals except a continental breakfast Sunday, not both days, no food vouchers or discounts. They were extremely slim on artist amenities. There was no organization to the tear down, just a free for all. The Friday night sale was quite pointless. I had no sales. And the 10-9 hours on Saturday were also pointlessly grueling, very few sales. There is only one info booth that is very far away from anyone on an end. Also there should be a booth sitter sign up sheet in addition to being able to call them, and once in a while have volunteers circulate not just to see if we want water, but if we want a booth sitter too, because I tried to call for a booth sitter, but my phone died during the call, and I went over to the volunteer and security guard at my end of the show for help contacting the info booth, but they didn't have any way of contacting them so they were no help.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: Do not do this show. They have nice looking advertising, but they do not attract the people that will spend more than $45 and only on jewelry and decorative crafty items. And they do focus on advertising but not artist amenities. It was the worst show I have ever done as far as sales v. booth fee, artist amenities, location and hours. I barely made my booth fee.

Steve Cebula

Show Name: Orchard Lake Fine Art Show
City and State: West Bloomfield, MI
Your Medium: 3D mixed media
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: 3-5 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: Patty and staff are very attentive to the artists, Friday setup drive to booth, artist parking is close and no charge, good quality of artwork.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: Attendance and sales for us are Fair, would not travel far just for this event.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: Good show as part of a series if you are in the area.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

Your Information

(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)