Show Time!

What’s the perfect length of an arts/crafts show?

Are one-day shows worth the effort spending hours setting up and breaking down only to be selling for a single day? Or are they a good opportunity to test a market? Does it make a difference if they’re close to home or father away? Does sleeping in your own bed make a one-day show more acceptable than having to stay in a hotel?

Conversely, are three-day shows too long? Are sales on that third day worth the extra time? Are they acceptable for long holiday weekends but not otherwise?

I ask all of this because a new show is being started here and the organizers are debating whether, because it’s new, it should just be one day.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m planning to commit to the new show no matter how many days it runs because it’s nearby, in a great outdoors location that attracts a lot of tourists and planned for a weekend when I have no other commitments. But I know several artists, particularly those with heavy products such as pottery, who say they will never do a one-day event.

I do think three-day shows are torture. By the middle of the third day artists are ready to just go home. Everyone’s tired and sales usually are minimal. The last time I did a three-day show over Memorial Day weekend I swore I’d never do one again. I haven’t.

And what hours should a show keep? Does keeping booths open until 8pm make much of a difference in sales? It hasn’t for me. The music at an event may be attracting people in the evening, but it’s usually a crowd looking for entertainment, not art.

I think shows that wait until 10am to open are losing a lot of sales. Those early birds are usually the ones who want to shop, not just look around. I like those that open at 9 (and I still seem to make sales at 8 while I’m setting up or reorganizing).

As for closing times, 6pm seems fine for the show’s first day, but an earlier close on the last day helps artists from out of town who are anxious to get on the road. They’ll leave anyway -- who wants a show where people are breaking down hours early, an act that often chases customers away from the whole show.

I don’t envy show organizers trying to figure out the best operations and logistics for their location, their artists, their customers. It’s not as easy as some people may think.

Charge!

I finally gave up on Wells Fargo Bank late last year and cancelled my long-held merchant account. The fees were just getting ridiculous. A fee for this, a fee for that, a fee for something else, on top of the percentage of sales they sucked from my account each month. And all those fees or percentages seemed to increase at an alarming rate.

So far I don’t think I’ve lost a significant number of sales by no longer accepting credit or debit cards. But as I head into the big summer show season, I’m wondering what kind of hit I may take. It could go two ways, I figure:

-- With everyone tight on cash, credit card use will be heavier and I’ll lose sales.

-- Credit card interest rates are killing people’s finances so they’re using them less frequently, meaning they should have the cash or write a check to pay for their purchases and I won’t lose many sales.

We all know many arts and crafts show purchases are spontaneous. A customer needs to really like and want a product to consider walking over to an ATM to get cash or back to the car to get the checkbook, then returning to my booth to buy something. They may say “I’ll be back to get it,” but they often aren’t.

I’ve sometimes directed people at shows to my online sales, but that, too, removes the spontaneity of purchases. While I’ve been surprised by some of the follow-through for those types of sales, I’d rather make them on-the-spot in my booth at a show.

So, if the first couple events next month indicate I’m losing sales by no longer accepting plastic, I’ll have to reconsider. The research is headache-inducing. So many banks and card processing companies to choose from but few that offer exactly what I want: low fees, low percentages and the ability to put the account on hold for months when I’m not doing shows.

Anyone have any merchant account provider recommendations or suggestions?

Arts Show Season Starts Soon

My first arts and crafts show of the 2009 summer season is just two months away. It’s the Festival of Arts and Crafts in beautiful Grand Lake, Colorado, June 6 and 7.

This is a sweet little event held in a gorgeous town park with views of the snow-covered peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park and the sparkling blue waters of Lake Granby. Area wildlife often walk through town and having to shovel moose or elk droppings out of your booth space before setting up is one unique element of this show. The organizers do their job well. The free pastries and coffee each morning are a nice touch.

I love using this show as the start of my season. It lets me test new products, play with my booth design and get feedback about both from returning customers and returning vendors who’ve become friends as well as friends who have become customers. Grand Lake is an easy and gorgeous 45-minute drive from my home.

Early June may seem late for just getting started with the summer show season, but this is Colorado, where weather in the mountains can range from hot sunshine to snow and wind any month of the year.

Three years ago, we awoke at Grand Lake to find six inches of snow on our booths. Many artists left, but a few of us brushed the snow away, bought dry socks at a nearby store and opened our booths with surprisingly good sales that afternoon. A year earlier, I spent the weekend in shorts and t-shirt, constantly fanning myself to cool off under the summer-like sun.

Early June also is the time that reverse-snowbirds from Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona start returning to their summer homes in the mountains and start looking for new ways to decorate those homes, providing the show with a build-in customer base.

Two months to go means evenings and weekends full of sewing. I customize my inventory of pillows, bags and other items for each show, reproducing vintage postcards and travel posters of that area on fabric and then quilting them into one-of-a-kind home décor items. Fortunately, Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park have been popular tourist spots since the early 1900s and great postcards are easy to find.

For details about Grand Lake, go to http://www.grandlakechamber.com/index.html.