Sequim Lavender Festival Street Fair Reviews.

Medium: 2D mixed media
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2016
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Price Range of your Work: $10-$300
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: Forever...
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 5
Location: 4
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 5
Sales: 2
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Set up was a breeze for me as my booth was on an adjunct area off of Fir on a baseball field with few other booths.

Friendly volunteers. Girl scouts delivered donuts every day. Good crowds every day.
Weather was lovely. Other vendors were super cool as I have found at all the shows out here. (I recently moved from Chicago).

People come from ALL over, I met a woman who dragged her husband and son from New Jersey for Lavender Fest.

The booth next to me was doing great business, they sold hand made leashes and hand made organic pet soaps and have quite a following. Fine with me as I sell dog and cat art.

My other neighbor sold exotic meat jerkys. (!)

Traffic was good despite being in the spur area.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
I knew this was not really a true art fair being part of the town's giant Lavender Fest. So there are a lot of crafts and soaps and other lovely lavender type items. However, I applied anyway since I recently moved to Sequim so it was easy for me to do. And I am just starting to build up a following out here.

It's a 3 day show and I didn't make my booth fee back until about 2:00 on the 2nd day. Needless to say I didn't make a ton of money but I did get a commission right away which is half the point of doing shows.

I spotted at least 3-4 buys-sell booths.
Amenities are few. Beyond the free donut, there are no booth sitters, no name tags, there was not even an artist booth map--
things I find to be pretty standard.

The biggest problem for me was my location. Basically I was on 2nd base of the high school baseball field and the dust was ridiculous. All my framed pieces under glass will need to be taken apart and cleaned. Everything in my booth was filthy even though I brought several carpets. Another artist went out and bought a water sprayer to keep dust down.

All the artist out there were upset and complained. The show people were very eager to listen and they are sorting out what to do about it next year. To my mind since there were only 16 of us out there they should just extend the booths one more block down Fir.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
It's a long haul out to Sequim but if you have other shows in the area might be worth it. And Sequim is in a lovely lovely part of WA.

Try to get a spot on the street if they have not addressed the dust situation.

Lots of artists were doing well, my sales were low but again, I had a poor location and I am new to the fest.

If I do get a few more commissions, or can be guaranteed a spot on the main street I might go back.

Communication is pretty small town. They mail out the acceptance, they mail out the booth packets. Even the initial application is by mail. sorta quaint.

Posted by: Sherry Scharschmidt | 07/25/2016 at 02:22 PM

Medium: Jewelry
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show: 2014
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $2001-$5000
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show: 3-5 times
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 3
Overall: 3
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 10,001-50,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Easy set up / tear down, many points of exit and entry on the street, not micro managed at all. Layout is all on one street, no dead ends, no side streets, etc.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Booth fee feels a bit high for the sales that can be achieved at this show. The show starts at 9 AM each day which seems really early, especially on those mornings when the marine layer doesn't lift for a while and it can be a bit chilly even in July.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Free RV parking is available, very few other artist amenities are offered. There is a hospitality booth but mostly junk food with a high sugar / high carb content.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
This is a street fair with fairly good quality arts and crafts, while there are fine art artists here there are also a lot of crafts mixed in, plus the lavender farm booths.

Posted by: Ruth Finkenbiner | 07/29/2014 at 10:19 PM

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