Piedmont Park Arts Festival Review.

Medium: Metal
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2015
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $2001-$5000
Price Range of your Work: $20-$200
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
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 3
Sales: 5
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Great
Estimated Attendance: Not really sure

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Lovely setting
Well-attended
Well-advertised

Set-up allowed all day Friday so there isn't too much of an over-crowding problem.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
It's in August in Atlanta, so it's HOT. Be ready for it.

There weren't as many Portalets as in the past, so "quick trips" weren't possible.

You can't bring vehicles in after Saturday morning and parking is quite a distance from the show.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
I enjoy this show. The promoters keep you well-informed and things generally run smoothly.

What prompted you to submit a review today?
I use reviews so I like to contribute

Posted by: Nancy Biggins | 08/20/2015 at 10:13 PM

Medium: Wood
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2013
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) 4
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 5 (great)
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Great
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Great location and there are always decent crowds that come to Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Not to the level of the Dogwood Festival in April but considering it was the middle of August and HOT, there were a decent amount of people strolling through.

Patrick, Randall, Lisa and the rest of the crew at AFFPS do a great job and always keep you informed with information throughout the festival.

Load in went without a major hiccup. No different from any other festival that you can drive up to your booth spot to unload. The festival was supposed to end at 6 on Sunday but the staff came around and said they were shutting it down at 5:30 to make certain that everyone was out of the park by the time a line of storms were supposed to roll through.

It took a while for the Atlanta Police to give the all clear to allow vehicles on-site. We ended up dollying out so we didn't have to wait on park traffic.
Bad Things about this Art Fair:

I just have to throw this one out there, but it is HOT. But what do you expect from a festival in Atlanta in August? They need more clusters of port-o-potties, we had to walk about a 1/4 mile to get to a row of them.

Parking is a challenge. It appeared that artists that had trailers were able to leave them on site on a designated side street within the confines of the park. We ended up paying $15.00 per day to park at the Atlanta Botanical Garden parking garage adjacent to the park. It was about a 10 minute walk to my booth from there.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Be patient with load-in and even more patient with load-out. It takes a while to evacuate a small city of artisans ;)

It will most likely be hot. Bring a cooler with a LOT of water and snacks. There were plenty of food options (i.e.: Food Trucks) along with the concession food vendor at the Greystone Bldg Pool.

Posted by: Matt Estrada | 08/20/2014 at 11:44 AM

Show Name: Piedmont Park Summer Art & Crafts Show
City and State: Atlanta, GA
Your Medium: Jewelry
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2013
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) 1 (poor)
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 3
Sales: 1 (poor)
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: under 500 people

Good Things about this Art Fair: The best thing about this show was, in my opinion, the show committee. This show had the potential to be great and from what I've heard has been great in the past. However, this year - it was cold and it rained and rained and rained.

I arrived on Friday morning to set up and found my space was loaded with mud. I really didn't want to set up in mud so I found a member of the show committee to see if it was possible to have my space changed - it was not, but he immediately started to do everything possible to help. First of all, the volunteer I was talking to (wish I knew his name) managed to borrow a shovel and began to dig out my space and another couple spaces next to me that were in the same condition. (We were setting up on pavement and the mud had washed down an embankment right behind the spaces.) The director, Patrick Dennis, came by and he too started shoveling. Then they got a City of Atlanta street cleaner who was working in the park to come through with a street sweeper. By the time they were done, the spaces had been cleaned up as well as anyone could have expected given the fact that it was still raining.

Throughout the weekend members of the show committee went from booth to booth with information updates and/or giving out bottled water and snacks.

Given the weather circumstances, load-in was well organized and simple. It was possible to drive right to the assigned space to unload. Load-out was also well planned. If all the exhibitors had followed instructions, the few traffic jams that occured would not have happened.

Kudos to this committe for all their hard work!

Piedmont Park is beautiful. The show was large and spread out - lots of walking to do. If the weather had cooperated it would have been a great place to spend the weekend.

Bad Things about this Art Fair: The rain kept the crowds away, so sales were few and far between. I and most of the other exhibitors I talked to barely made our booth fees back. Since I'm pretty sure sales are the most important factor for most of us, the lack of sales means this show was a failure and a financial loss. The few people that were walking around seemed to be dog walking or there for an "event" but shopping was secondary.

Parking is also a real problem. Because this is a city location, the only parking was on the street or in a paid lot. Wherever you managed to find a place, it meant a long walk to the booth space.

I stayed in my booth during the 3 hour time frame when the judging process was to take place. At no point did I even see any judges, let alone have them brought around by show committee members like I have experienced with other shows. To me, this is a negative. If a show is going to be judged, give the artists an opportunity to meet the people who are doing the judging. If the judges want to be anonymous, then get new judges.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show: I'm blaming the financial loss on the weather, thus, if I'm accepted, I will try this show again. If sales are still crappy with good weather then I'll know that this is not the right place for my work.

Posted by: Jolene Cazzola | 09/01/2013 at 07:29 PM

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