Weston Art Show

<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>Weston Art Show</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"> <bR> <div> Dec. 4-5, 13th Annual Weston Art Show. Contact: Howard Alan Events, 9695 W. Broward Blvd. Plantation, Fl. 33324. 954-472-3755 www.artfestival.com </div> <div> Weston is a very upscale area west of Fort Lauderdale, Fl. For the past few years the show has been located in the upscale Town Center Plaza Shopping Center. This year the show had a new date. Traditionally it was the weekend before Thanksgiving and this year it was moved to the first weekend in December. We normally do another show this weekend on the west coast of Florida but that show has not been that great for us so we thought we’d give Weston a try. Weston is a local show for us and we’d get to sleep in our own bed plus no travel/hotel expenses. </div> <div> This is one of the few “Howard” Shows that has a Friday night set-up, another plus. Set-up was bit un-organized. Several artists were wondering around trying to find their space, no one from Howard Alan’s office could be found on site. Booth spaces were scattered all around the shopping center, there were spaces in the main show area and others around corners back on side streets. One artist referred their group of spaces as the “additional artist spaces” because of the sign with those words alerting the public that they were there. One thing that really alarmed me was as we were setting up shoppers kept coming by asking us what was going on there this weekend. There were no traffic signs, no signs in store windows and the billboard on I-75 for the show was not there this year. No one seemed to know about the show. I did buy a Friday paper and there was an advertisement in there so I did feel better.</div> <div> Saturday and Sunday the weather was clear and cool, perfect art show weather. I had asked several of the artists there if they had done this show before, about half said they had even though they keep telling themselves they’re not coming back. Most commented this is a way below average show but there’s not much else to do this weekend so they’re back. </div> <div> Sales here were very slow for almost all artists I spoke with. I had plenty of time to walk around because sales for us were zero. I spoke with between 25 and 30 different artists and 3 said they had a decent show. The rest were divided between under 1000.00, barely making expenses and several like us that were shut out completely. The group of artists in the additional artist spaces were not happy, “we’re only getting about 1/3 the amount of people past our booths back there.” I was quick to point out that people coming by our booths out in the main area weren’t buying so the lack of traffic was really not hurting them. I tried but was not much comfort. </div> <div> I spoke with one artist that said she had been doing HA shows for over 10 years and this was her last one. “I’m giving up on them, it’s no longer worth my time to sit here all weekend and make what I’m making.” </div> <div> Breakdown was easy and didn’t take long, again there were no rules and no one from HA around to enforce rules if there were any. Most artist I spoke with said they would not be back for this show again. We definitely will not go back.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>