Edina Fall into the Arts Festival Review -

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2022
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $5001-$10,000
Price Range of your Work: $40-$6000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
2-3 times
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 5-10 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 5 (great)
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 3
Sales: 5 (great)
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Great
Estimated Attendance: 50,001+ people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
The demographics and population density support this show. Many thousands of people with disposable income live within walking distance.
Although my sales in 2019 were terrible, a patron contacted me later and bought a very large print. In 2022, my sales all weekend were strong and steady.

Good food is easily bought in the food section; volunteers are very helpful and roam the show.

What could this Art Fair have done better?:
Load in, can be a clown show; load out can be the same. It depends on where you are, and whether or not you can dolly a short distance off-site to your vehicle.

In addition, the booths are too close together. There's really no space outside of your booth for inventory, so you have to eat up interior space storing three days of product.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
You need to stand out somehow in a show of nearly 300 artists. Since the booth fee is high, and hotels are expensive, I think you'll have an extremely hard time getting to good profitability if all you sell is $10-$50 items.

There are many highly polished artists here whose work sells for multiple-thousands of $$, so bring your A-game, and lots of inventory; and don't be afraid to show some high-dollar work, mixed in with lower price points.

There are people here with serious money, but also a good population with a little bit of disposable income to spend.

Even then, as with all shows, there are no guarantees, and again it will be particularly hard to make good money if you have to travel far. If you're local, you can set the bar lower and you'll have a better chance at being profitable at Edina.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Parking can be a challenge, so be ready to dolly in and out if your booth load-in time is in the evening. You can start setting up at about 6:30 p.m. if you're on 50th Street; much earlier than that if you're on France Ave.

Booth sitters are available by text, and they are reliable and responsive.

Bring a water bottle to use at the refill stations. A good variety of food is available for purchase in the food area.

This show is under new management as of 2022 and they seem truly interested in making improvements over the past methods.

The URL of your profile on ArtFairInsiders.com. https://www.artfairinsiders.com/members/LawrenceMSawyer

See my blog on ArtFairInsiders.com for additional commentary on this Show

Posted by: Lawrence Sawyer | 06/10/2022 at 02:57 PM

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2021 Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2,000 Price Range of your Work: $40-$6000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 2-3 times
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 5-10 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) - 5 (great) Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Absolutely lovely location; artists are treated well, very good crowds who spend money; and the best-best thing, parking is plentiful and close.

And they really do treat artists pretty darned well. I mean, where else can you go to an indoor lounge and get a free glass of wine??

What could this Art Fair have done better?:

I'm not sure what else they could do, other than having volunteers frequently stop by your booth and offer you a break, instead of having you text them when you need one. That's about all I can think of and it's not significant; it was run better this year than in previous years.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
This review is for the 2021 show! The demographic in this part of Edina skews older, retired and with more limited wall space, so if you're selling 2-D, you may have to work harder for the bigger sales.

That said, these people are well-educated and well-off. They may, as a whole, be a little past their prime art-buying years. But there are some younger folks there as well, and there is money to be spent.

I feel that Covid forced the organizers to up their game and examine every part of what they do. It's a lovely show with lots of booth space and they are quite good to the artists. You may have to work a bit for your sales, but the money is there and no one questioned my prices.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
As of this writing, we're still deep in Covid Times, and I applaud Susan Tarnowski and the entire staff for deciding to go ahead with the event. I am thankful they did so.

The URL of your profile on ArtFairInsiders.com. https://www.artfairinsiders.com/members/LawrenceMSawyer

What prompted you to submit a review today?
I enjoyed doing the show!

Posted by: Lawrence Sawyer | 09/20/2021 at 02:16 PM

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2018
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501 - $2,000
Price Range of your Work: $45 - $2,500
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: 5
Sales: 2
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 10,001 - 50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
There is an indoor lounge with refreshments and restrooms in the pavilion. It's lovely! Although, I have no idea when an artist could use it, except early in the morning before the show starts.

Booth spots down by the water are quite nice. Lots of shade is provided by trees.

What could this Art Fair have done better?:
Water bottles or snacks would have been appreciated. NO water was ever brought to the artists, which for a summer show is incomprehensible to me.

They also need more trash cans. When an artist has to leave their booth and walk 100 yards each way to throw away trash, that's just silly.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Communication is decent and the show is well organized. Attendance is good and the crowd does buy. I saw all manner of art being carried away by patrons.

If you are in the ramp above, bring weights. Even down below, there are very few spaces where you could stake down a tent. Weights are it.

If you want anything during the show from the organizers, be ready to go them to ask for it. Volunteers are pretty sparse.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
This is physically a nice area and show, with real potential for good sales. As with any event, cover all price points to boost your odds.

Load in and load out can take some time if you are located by the water. The pathway there is just one car wide and the clueless can sometimes take forever to move their vehicles.

See my blog on ArtFairInsiders.com for additional commentary on this Show *
Yes, please note that on my review

Posted by: Lawrence Sawyer | 10/03/2018 at 08:29 AM

I have done this show for two years now, and it's one of my best. Very easy parking and set up in the ramp. Lots of sales for me and good steady crowds.

Posted by: Leslie Mornes | 04/22/2016 at 09:16 PM

Show Name: Fall Into the Arts Festival
City and State: Edina, MN
Your Medium: Photography
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: 1st time
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 2
Location: 2
Facilities: 2
Ease of Participating: 3
Sales: 2
Overall: 2
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: An easy set-up for those in the upper parking ramp, as most can park near or directly behind their booth. However, the ramp also doesn't get as much foot traffic, can be windy, and can be hot.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: The show does a really poor job of balancing mediums, especially jewelry and photography which are way over crowded. The organizers are pretty clueless and basically non-existent during the show. Nobody stopped by to ask how sales were or if we had any suggestions. Lots of buy/sell made it into this show, and it's a strange layout with about half of the artists setup on the top level of a parking ramp and the rest setup along a long and sprawling walkway along a pond. When we walked the show we wondered if we would ever reach the end! It's no wonder none of the people that said they would 'be back' to purchase later never made it! The clientele that attend this show aren't anything like those that attend the Edina Art Fair the first week of June (despite being held in the same city).

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
It's a much nicer setting to be down in the park by the water, however, it's also a huge pain during teardown because there's only a single lane and it can get really jammed up. The area in the park gets better foot traffic and I believe the people down there had better sales. It wasn't a very good show, and despite having relatively low expenses to do the show I barely managed a profit. I won't be back and wouldn't suggest doing this show unless it's under better management.

Posted by: Ryan Tischer | 10/02/2013 at 10:29 AM

My fist year doing this show. Though we had a poor year for sales overall, this one wasn't too bad. The crowd was fairly interested in my work, which was a refreshing change. We were in the upper parking lot. My partner thought maybe the lower level would have been better, but I kind of liked it up there. There were some high winds, and we brought a bunch of extra bricks to weight our tent. Load-in and out was easy, and parking was convenient.

Posted by: Christina Plichta | 03/03/2013 at 09:04 PM

Show Name: Edina Fall into the Arts Festival
City and State: Edina MN
Your Medium: Painting
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: 2-3 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 1 (poor)
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:The people that organize it are nice, the tight set up and tear down situation is well handled.
An absolutely beautiful setting on the lake

Bad Things about this Art Fair: The only bad thing would be that I felt attendance was way down this year.

Posted by: Joan Finnegan | 01/24/2013 at 11:15 PM

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