QotW: if you do retail shows, what are you most comfortable with in the way of shows?

Pres · October 31, 2020

ONce again there are no new suggestions for questions. I have noticed that there seems to be concern about doing shows with the Covid situation, and up till this point I have tried to stay away from Covid when asking questions, and will continue to do so. So ignoring Covid (if possible) if you do retail shows, what are you most comfortable with in the way of shows?

I started out years ago, by joining the local Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, Blair County. I was a founding member, and therefore a party involved with by laws, activities and meetings. We decided to jury within the chapter, and that any member wishing to be in a local Guild sponsored would need to be juried in the chapter. I was one of the first juried in, and later became a juror. We did a show at Christmas time for a few years, then I did some local shows in the Summers, mostly finding it a waste of time as they were too small to draw a proper crowd, a beginning but expensive. At the same time as this was happening the Penn State festival was having changes and their local artist groups were complaining about lack of local artists being represented. This brought about a separate jurying that allowed work in person after slides to be judged for the local division. In the beginning the locals were located in one area, then over the years spread over the entire 400+ slots. This was a large show, and I did it for about 7 years. I loved doing the show, even though it was a lot of work, and I met a lot of local people. My wife helped me at the booth, and at times a friend of ours. I often would have to return home during the day to unload a kiln and make certain I had stock. After 7 years my wife was pretty burned out, as was I trying to teach in the Spring and throw pots at night to get up 10K of stock for the show. This was rough on family and our social lives to the point that when another venue opened up for shorter hours and better return I took it and became a college professor for the next 5 years teaching night and Summer classes.

If I were to return to doing shows, at my age it would be local, small booth set up with easy to sell items with a few show pieces. No large booth, no orders, what you see is what you get sort of thing. Just to keep busy, but then again, a good display in a retail area would do as much good I think.