Hi there. How was your weekend?
I participated in a local holiday art & craft fair this past weekend. I was really excited about this one....I attended this show as a shopper last year and was impressed by the large crowd in attendance. The show was so busy that it was almost hard to shop! I like my odds at those kind of events. I really thought this was going to be a good show for me.If you read the title of this post, you've probably deduced that my experience as a vendor this year was not what I had expected....In fact, it was awful...I didn't even make enough money to cover my booth fees. It was the worst show I've ever had! Ouch.
It's so easy for me to work myself into a funk after I've had a bad show....I take what I do very seriously and very personally. I wonder, "Is what I make sub-standard? Do I really have talent? Is it time to hang up the "artist" towel and go back to teaching?"
After a little pouting, I put on my "critical thinking" hat and tried to figure out why this show went so wrong. I quickly deduced that my lack of sales had little to do with the quality of my work. It had more to do with the venue and my placement in it. My booth was placed in an almost hidden portion of an immense show. At any point during the show you could walk into the main area of the show and be met by throngs of people, while only a trickle would make it back to my locale. The numbers were against me. Had more people seen my work, I'm quite confident I would have been more successful.
I jotted this down in my sketchbook during the show.
This will be my goal in the coming months.....I need to find that target audience, and maybe it's not at the local craft show. Maybe I have to think bigger and beyond local. All I know is that I'm not giving up. Creating is a part of me. I will make and eventually...the buyers will come more readily than they are today.
So my fellow maker friends, how did you connect with your target market? Any advice for me?
Thanks for reading. Ta-ta for now.
