I haven't done a lot of shows this year. Last year I tried to get into every show I could find, it seems like. This time around, I decided to try to stick with the juried art show variety, which seems to be working better for me. Jewelry is generally a very saturated category (I've even had customers mention how many jewelry booths there are at 'this show', and so on). Even in juried shows, there is never a shortage of jewelry booths, but since they are purposefully selecting the artists, they tend to have a better variety. Which works out better for everyone.
For my most recent, the Mason Arts Festival last Sunday, I decided to sort of try to work myself into a niche. I got together a decent amount of new PMC pieces and had far fewer strung bead necklaces. The majority of my pieces were earrings, then quite a few necklaces and three or four bracelets. Overall, it turned out to be a really good day for me sales-wise, and the weather, although starting out with a chance of rain and kind of cool, ended up being warm (okay, hot) and sunny. There was a nice breeze all day, so that was nice!
I have to say, the Mason-Deerfield Arts Alliance did a fantastic job of organizing this festival. It was their 5th year and my first as a participant. Their volunteers were around all day to help with set-up, transporting vendors back and forth to their cars, watching booths for breaks, bringing waters, etc. It was very helpful and I felt very welcome there. You could tell it was well-publicized too. We had a steady stream of shoppers all day long. I really hope to become a yearly participant at this one.
This is my booth set-up this time around.
A couple views of the shoppers from my booth.
This is the bag of freshly popped kettle corn from the booth behind mine. I could smell it all day and finally caved. (How could I not?) It was fantastic. This is the small bag!
