If you are a seasoned art/craft show exhibitor, you know of what I speak in the next few sentences. You get to your show, check out you spaces assigned, figure out how to work around the others also figuring out how to work around you, watch the sky, or listen to the weather scanner, or ask anyone who had access to the tv weather forecast the nite before to see if there are any winds to worry about.
This particular weekend, we also were faced with the first outcroppings of giant Northern Wisconsin Mosquitoes. They were vicious. Sigh.
Well, tents are up, neighbors greeted and we are ready for customers. Where are the customers? Oh! A few stragglers, oh, they are only other exhibitors scoping out their competition, or shopping from their favorite artists. Sigh. Right about now, it would be time for that first cup of java. Hmmmm, thinking about it. But, alas, not to be. I have just been put on a restricted diet, which does not include caffeine of any kind.........Sigh.
Nothing happening yet. Hmmmmmm, I will go and see if "so and so" is here today. I'll be back to check on the sales in a little while. We have a family, you know. A "work" family. Some we see almost every show, some we see a couple of times the season. We can't wait to catch up on what has happened in the months since we last parted.
There are signs you know. Signs of a good show or a bad show. This is where we start reminiscing. (sp?) We share some funny antedotes to keep hope alive. Oh, remember when people were waiting for us to arrive and we couldn't get our tubs out fast enough, and they didn't wait for us to hang our pictures, but began going through them before we got them on the panels? Remember when there were two people wanting the same picture, and waiting for each other to make a decision? Remember when there were lines in the checkout, and some people carried two or three pictures at the same time? Sigh.
Those signs were from the good old days. The days when the art shows were not infiltrated with "buy and sell" merchandise. When the people who attended them could be sure they were purchasing from the artist who made them. It has corrupted now. Very few of us remain who truly still do our own work. It is maddening, but times they are a'changing.......soon, I fear, the art/craft roadshow will go the wayside of malls, which were once incredibly popular.....
The other signs we watch for are the food lines, the women's bathroom lines and the bags being carried around of purchases. When you don't have to stand in line for either of the two a fore-mentioned things, it is not a good show. If people are not carrying bags, you are entertainment. Sigh.
We talk about all these things, each and every time we are having a slow show. We also talk about "why". Why are there not people? If there are people, why are they not buying? It's the weather, the economy, the advertising, the promoters, of course, never, ever our product.
Well, this weekend, it was the weather (it was too nice), the economy (people just looking), the fact that there is still school in the lower states for kids--so no vacationers, yet. There were no lines for the women's bathroom. I suspect there was lots of corn on the cob left as I saw no food lines.
There was parking available----this is truly a bad sign.Perhaps the worse, is when I saw exhibitors playing scrabble........oh, that's a slow show....
Well, here are my husband's wonderful bird and toadhouses he makes. He did sell some of these this weekend, I was happy about that. They certainly are pretty and different.
We enjoyed seeing our friends again after a long hiatus of winter. Some of the shows are really all about getting to be with certain people, or visiting with them for a short time. Thinking of you Nancy and Joanse, and praying that you will get some healing real soon, and we will get together again, then. Love you both.
