Mandarin Art Festival Reviews -

Medium: Jewelry
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2023
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $501-$2000
Price Range of your Work: $25 - $125
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 2-3 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 3
Location: 4
Facilities: 4
Ease of Participating: 4
Sales: 3
Overall: 4
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Okay
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
This festival is in a lovely setting in a wooded wealthy area of Jacksonville. It is well organized with the Mandarin Community Center offering free lunch for the vendors and easy check in / load in procedures.

Generally you can drive right up to your spot. Booths are all on grass (fairly even ground). It is well supported by the local community.

Once you are accepted to the show, you do not have to pay an application fee the following year.

What could this Art Fair have done better?:
Communication with the organizers was delayed - no answer to 2 emails. I ended up mailing a hard copy of my application and they did let me in the show with only a few weeks notice.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
With a fairly low booth fee $215, this show is worth a try especially if you are nearby in FL.

Parking is difficult since it is in a neighborhood - I paid $10 a day to a local resident to park in their yard. Well worth it! Otherwise you are riding a shuttle to the site.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
I did fairly well with sales even though the weather was almost 90 on Saturday then rainy and cold Sunday (Easter). People still came out in the rain albeit in smaller numbers.

My impression is that sales were hit or miss. My price point for jewelry is in the mid-range, which I think helped. The artist across from me sold several paintings, even a large one of high value.

Posted by: Heather Bailey | 04/25/2023 at 11:07 PM

Medium: Photography
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2016
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $500
Price Range of your Work: $10-560
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 1st year
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 2
Location: 3
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 3
Sales: 1
Overall: 2
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Location was nice, in a seemingly affluent area. Easy load in/out. Reasonable booth fee.

Promotion of the show was great - lots of social media posts highlighting individual artists in addition to the show itself.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
Attendance was very low. Not many buyers. Only coffee for amenities.

Fine art mixed in with craft.

Parking situation was inconvenient and most exhibitors parked wherever they wanted regardless if they were supposed to.

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Although it's always on Easter weekend, this show is 48 years old and has a good reputation for smaller crowds that buy. That was not my experience, however.

Saturday was a bit rainy, but Sunday was much better, still no crowds. Very few buyers.

I was in a row of exhibitors new to the show and none of them expressed an interest in returning next year.

Additional Commentary on this Show:
It was billed as a fine art and fine craft show. In my opinion, the definition of "fine" craft was questionable.

I was trying to sell fine art in a row of craft booths selling $20-30 items.

The URL of your profile on ArtFairInsiders.com. http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profile/KarenKurta

What prompted you to submit a review today?
Disappointing show I wish I had more information on.

Posted by: Karen Kurta | 04/11/2016 at 04:53 PM

this show was pretty well organized, nice staff. attendance was low and not too interested in buying. I sold a good amount of mainly prints in the $50-$100 range. I didn't do too bad.Sunday was better than Saturday. Not sure if its worth doing again though.

Posted by: patti | 05/13/2015 at 11:55 AM

Medium: 2D mixed media
Year you most recently exhibited at this Show:
2015
Your Estimated Sales at this Show: $500
Price Range of your Work: 250-1500
Number of Years You have Exhibited in this Show:
1st time
Number of Years You have been doing Art Fairs overall: 5-10 years
Attendance: (1 is poor, 5 is great) 1
Location: 5
Facilities: 3
Ease of Participating: 5
Sales: 1
Overall: 1
Booth Fee vs. Your Sales Ratio: Poor
Estimated Attendance: 501-10,000 people

Good Things about this Art Fair:
Beautiful park venue in affluent neighborhood. Nice people. Friday set up.

Bad Things about this Art Fair:
poor attendance. no parking for customers, shuttle service. flea market mixed with art. poor attendance. very little signage on roads making me think very little promotion. poor attendance!

Advice to Other Artists Considering this Show:
Unless you have a huge max. following don't bother. I saw one artist do well and that is because he is well known and did his own promo.

Not a single artist I talked to did well. Many I talked to were zero dollars. beware.. I think this show thinks that since they have been doing the show for 43 years everyone knows about it and will come... not the case.

The URL of your profile on ArtFairInsiders.com. www.artfairinsiders.com/profile/TimDardis

Posted by: Tim Dardis | 04/18/2015 at 08:42 PM

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