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Hey Rebekah,

 

About 37 1/2 yrs ago there was a national crafts newspaper

called something like "Sunshine Arts and Craft". To find

an event in your area, I'd call the Wisconsin Bureau of

Tourism. In Alabama the tourism book is called " Calendar of Events".

It lists most of the major arts and craft shows and mule parades.

 

Good luck with the show.

 

Alabàma

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I made a submission to a juried show through one of the juried services; I now get a continuous stream of solicitations for events.  Some prestigious, some now -- all in search of your non-refundable entry free.  My delete/trash button saves me lots of money. 

 

One of the "big" events in Alexandria, VA, is the Old Town Craft Fair -- with over 200 artisans all along King Street.  Went one year; there were four local artists and all the rest were from out of state.  And they all seemed to travel in caravans to the same shows, sponsored by the same marketing company. 

 

And, prestigious and respected shows will have entry fees to match. 

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Often larger prestigious shows do not have space for local artisans. When they get 2-3K applications, locals get overlooked. At Penn State Festival, that occurs in July the organizers set up a local jury system for those with in the county and surrounding counties. It is made up of a set percentage of the total show, and allows locals to participate and as they do support the festival. This show, that occurs on the alumni weekend has gotten so big that it fostered a second show in a nearby town called the "Peoples Choice". This in reaction to the feeling that the Penn State festival had gotten too high brow for most peoples taste. As always happens with good intentions, over the years the two shows look much the same, but allow for more traffic, and a very lucrative weekend for local businesses. Seems like that is what it is all about any more!

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There is no one comprehensive list of these things, but there are several helpful resources out there.

 

I think bciske is referring to Juried Art Services (http://juriedartservices.com). All of the shows and exhibitions that use JAS for their application platform are prestigious. You can cruise their website, or I believe you can sign up to receive email notices about upcoming application deadlines.

 

There's also Zapplication (http://www.zapplication.org). Zapp is the most popular application platform. They list hundreds (maybe 1000s?) of shows. The website has a good search engine so you can find shows in your area. I would not sign up for their emails because there are simply too many shows on Zapp for that to be worthwhile.

 

Art Fair Sourcebook is another good collection of show listings (http://artfairsourcebook.com). You can subscribe to their comprehensive service, or you can sign up for their emails for free. I get the free emails and have occasionally found some good shows this way.

 

The shortcoming of all of these listings is that they are national. Very few of their listings will be close enough to your location. So they will only help you so much. By far the best resource for finding new shows is to develop a network of festival buddies. If you do a lot of shows, this will develop naturally.

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If you want to head into the sunshine states-sunshine artists also has a list

http://www.sunshineartist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=960

 

also artfairinsiders has some good solid free info

http://www.artfairinsiders.com/

 

The sourcebook used to do best shows in regional areas-I subscribed for a few years(this is a pricey deal) back when I was expanding into other states. They are spendy but the info is from artists doing the shows and reviewing them so its good.

Mark

 

ps you can get some info from goggle as well like

http://www.artfaircalendar.com/art_fair/best-art-fairs.html

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Festival Net is also a good source for show listings nation wide  They have a reasonably good search engine to keep things within a specified distance radius of your location. The only drawback as I see it, is that you have to become a member in order to see all of the pertinent contact information for each show or festival. But, it's a good starting point, at the very least.

 

http://festivalnet.com/index.html

 

Thanks for all of the other links as well. There's a couple of them I hadn't previously known about! B)

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Sunshine Artist is an art and craft show magazine that advertises and lists festivals all over the place. It was my bible when I was doing nationwide shows several years ago. Art fair sourcebook is another source though in the past when I bought them they were expensive but if you are interested in only certain regions you can save some money by getting just that region.

 

You still have to do your due diligence even great shows can go down hill fast. You also have to be careful of look alike shows... Aka shows that name themselves very similar to a known excellent show but aren't. Also as mentioned some shows get so big they ignore their local talent so they can advertise they have artists from so many states or even countries. I always felt Gasparilla in Tampa was one if these for many years not sure if they still are or not. Oh and that feeling might just be becasue I used to live in Tampa and it was the one show I never got into, Coconut Grove CHECK, Ann Arbor CHECK, Penn State CHECK, Virginia Beach CHECK, New York CHECK, Chicago Check.... Tampa Hyde Park CHECK, Tampa Gasparilla Nope never not gonna happen sigh... I don't think I'm bitter do you?

 

Good luck on your search!

 

Terry

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we pay $90 a year for the pro membership of http://festivalnet.com/ and it really seems worth it. You can maintain list of listings and they just added the ability to have multiple lists. Everything can be pushed to a calendar and you can export your list to spreadsheet files. Seems to very inclusive of all the shows within a few hours of us and has tons of criteria to filter the shows such as distance, juried or not, how many people, does it allow buy/sell or just artisans etc. Highly recommend it as an adjunct to the other methods mentioned here.

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