Show Report

I just finished a three day show held by the Black Creek Arts Council in Hartsville, SC. This was their second year holding a “Christmas Shoppe”. It was a juried craft show, with only hand made items. Hartsville is a small college town, the international headquarters of Sonoco. So there is money in town <vbg> – but it is still a small Southern town, so also lots of poverty.

The Black Creek Arts Council is very active, and has its own building with gallery and classrooms. The show was very small – just 11 booths – and was held in the gallery. There were three potters; two folks with mirrors (one was a potter too); one glass artist pair; one hand made soap guy; one photographer; and three of us with just jewelry, as well as one potter with turquoise jewelry.

Black Creek has their patrons accustomed to Thursday evening opening nights, with wine and refreshements donated by local businesses. So we opened on Thursday, and had a fantastic turn out, complete with Santa and workshops for the kids upstairs so their parents could enjoy the crafts show downstairs.

The director had done a fabulous job with promotion, with lots of press releases in area papers, postcards, e-mail notices, etc. So lots of “buzz”. The local library has some wonderful secure display cases, and he had also put some work in the display cases for the month leading up to the show.

I had one lady come because she had seen two of my necklaces in the library. She didn’t buy one of those, but bought one of my high-end pieces ($250) plus a good many other pieces.

After a wonderful Thursday night, with great sales, I sold a total of $49 for the whole day Friday – just awful! I think it was bad for everyone. I would be surprised if we had 50 people come through for the whole day. Frankly, it was more like 30!

Thankfully today was MUCH better, although still nothing like Thursday evening! We had more traffic, and thankfully more buyers, so my total for the show was quite nice.

I also have a couple of custom orders still to complete, so that will up the total.

In addition to the good PR, the Arts Council provided hot spiced tea and snacks each day, and ordered pizza for lunch for the artists today – very nice of them! I will definitely do this show again!

This coming week I am trying another show that is new for me. It is a Holiday Bazaar at the huge hospital in Chapel Hill, NC on Wednesday, Not billed as a craft fair, but as “gifts, crafts, art, music”….so not sure what I will find! Given the other sales events I have seen the hospital hold, I expect it to have an excellent turn out, so hope for a good day! It is not booths, but tables. Given that it is my first time, I only reserved one table, which will be tight quarters for me. But with the economy the way it is, and having to pay for a motel room (not cheap in Chapel Hill!!), I really didn’t want to plump for two tables. If it goes well, I’ll get two next year.