2003 Village

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="05bfd5a3.jpg"> <div> <B>Village Arts and Crafts Fair</B></div> <div> <B>6260 N.W. 19 Street, Sunrise, Fl. 33313 Toll Free 1-877-512-3333    Email: </B><A HREF="mailto:mike@mikealbin.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mike@mikealbin.com"><U><B>mike@mikealbin.com</B></U></A></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="05cd2043.jpg"> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mike Albin.Com "><U>Mike Albin.Com </U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="wd.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Web design"><U>Web design</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="ma.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marketing Articles"><U>Marketing Articles</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="sr.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Show Reviews"><U>Show Reviews</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="mt.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marketing Tools"><U>Marketing Tools</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="l.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U>Links</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#777777" TEXT="#080000"> <div> 2003 Village Arts and Crafts Fair</div> <div> 31st Annual Village Arts and Crafts Fair, On the grounds of The Cathedral of All Souls Church, Asheville, North Carolina.  Contact: New Morning Gallery, 7 Boston Way, Asheville, NC 28803  August 2nd and 3rd </div> <bR> <div> This is the show that all the artists love to talk about!  The stories get bigger every year.  One can only imagine how many of them are true.  Until this year this was the show where the artists had to "run for their spaces."  Many of the artists felt this was degrading and refused to do the show.  These artists are the ones doing most of the talking.  </div> <div> We did this show for the first time last year and did participate in the dash for our space.  To be honest, it wasn't nearly as bad as we had heard.  We did well enough to come back.  This year, to most everyone's delight, the promoter of the show, John E. Cram, decided to assign spaces.  Set up for the show is still early Saturday morning and don't be late, the booths are pack so tightly together if you do get there late you may only have nine feet to squeeze your booth into.  There is room for storage away from your tent, under a tree or in the grass between street and sidewalk.</div> <div> Saturday the show doesn't officially start until 10:00am but by 9:00am there are plenty of people walking around and ready to buy.  For all that is said about John, I challenge anyone, anywhere to find an art show promoter that knows more about marketing art and getting art buyers to a show than Mr. Cram!  He runs four different art galleries so he's very acquainted with art buyers.  At his show they come out and buy and they don't usually ask for a better price, even people that buy multiple pieces!  These are people that love and respect the arts and the artists.  You don't have to do a lot of selling at this show just stand there and wait for the next person to say "I'll take it."  At almost every show we do, we hear some artists do well and some not so well.  There are very few artists at this show that do not do well!  Art here runs the gamut… jewelry, wood working, painting, photography and sculpture, all of which is very high quality .  Everyone I talked to said this show is usually a good one for them.  </div> <div> We sold seven pieces, two of which were over $3000.00 and two others were over $1500.00.  Six of our sales were on Saturday.  We felt we would have done better on Sunday but it rained really hard midway through the day and washed out a lot of the crowds.  </div> <div> Another photographer I talked to said this is usually a slightly better than average show and this year was no different.  A copper sculptor said this was his first year here and was a better than average show for him.  There are a number of artists that have been doing this show for ten years or more and look forward to coming back every year.  Other artists we've talked to at different shows said they wouldn't touch this show with a ten-foot pole.  We had heard such bad things from other artists, such as, "the booth space fee is $500.00!"; "you have to run to your space" and "too many spaces and packed very tightly together",  that we decided not to do this show our first couple of years.  Then we started hearing about the sales numbers artists were doing here and decided to give it a try.  We're glad we did!  This is a better than average show for us, it comes close to doubling our average show.  We've been treated worse at other shows and haven't made nearly the sales.  Set-up and break down can be a bit hectic with everyone coming and going at the same time.  Some people have to dolly in and out and parking is a short hike away but there's plenty of room for trailers and campers.     </div> <div> The staff and volunteers are friendly.  Church members bring around coffee and biscuits in the morning for one dollar each.  They serve homemade sandwiches, cookies, cakes, sodas and chips all very reasonably priced.  It's good old fashioned country cookin' at it's best.   </div> <div> If Mr. Cram will have us back after reading this article we'd be happy to return for many years to come.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>