Columbia Festival of the Arts Reviews..

Medium: Wood
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2015
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $500
Price Range of your Work: 10-500
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
2-3 times
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 2-3 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 2
Location: 5
Facilities: 5
Ease of Participating: 5
Sales: 1
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
3 day show with bands 95% of the time. Some roving entertainment and the people who run the show are fantastic.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
The quality of the bands declined quite a bit from previously and roving entertainment was not as plentiful as previous year.

Attendance was very low and most that did come were browsers. The majority of the attendees seemed bored, I've seen it all before...some of this of course is influenced by the economy.

I did not talk to one artist who had broken even and this show only had about 55 artists so it was not hard to talk to most of them.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Don't. The Columbia people are very nice and work very hard at promoting this show. That seemed to make very little difference considering attendance and sales. Sorry but this one will be off my list next year.

The URL of your profile on ArtFairInsiders.com.
http://majesticks.net

Posted by: Mark Madachik | 07/09/2015 at 09:47 AM

Medium: Wood
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2014
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) 4
Location: 5 (great)
Facilities: 5 (great)
Ease of Participating: 5 (great)
Sales: 4
Overall: 5 (great)
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Good
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
They put a lot of effort into things that will attract people, Bands playing from start to finish, sidewalk entertainers, great area on a lake and excellent support for the artists. Sales were not booming but this was no fault of the people who run this show. I will go back next year. I enjoyed the weekend

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
The great area has one drawback and that is there are multiple ways to enter and leave the area and the artists are spread throughout which isn't bad in itself but I watched more than one family walk straight through without venturing (maybe not knowing) into the other areas of the show. These were more than likely the people just coming for the entertainment which was extensive

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
There is plenty of free parking and volunteer help with loading both ways. Plenty of hotels nearby, Planned community so if you want to eatafter or before the show save yourself driving around. EVERYTHING is at the mall across the street. Easy in and out to major highways.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
Even though my sales were not great they covered my expenses and I enjoyed the weekend.

Posted by: Mark Madachik | 06/20/2014 at 10:28 AM

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