Art Festivals: Be carefull what you wish for...

The Good the Bad and the Crazy Art Festivals

I have been in the business of Art Shows and Art Festivals for a lifetime, and I've participated in ones that were fantastic to ones that were awful and everything in between.
This past weekend was a new experience. Off and on during my tenure of shows I have applied for and been rejected from one peticular show, an old established, high income producing spectacular that most art show artists covet. The jury fee is a high $35.oo just to have the privilege of having our slides reviewed by a group of jurors. You can imagine how much money I have already spent on this show without ever doing it!
This year we were surprised and delighted to have been accepted into the show at long last.
Well, the much anticipated show was last weekend and I can relax now knowing that I can stop praying for the acceptance letter for this show. I doubt I will ever bother to apply again. I'm $35.00 richer each year for this revelation!
The show, perhaps because of the economy, was only average in sales....it was actually pretty good, but after all the anticipation....it was a let down. Obviously my expecations were a tad lofty.
I was really surprised and amazed at the lack of organization. The set up was an nightmare, organized by amatures. Specific set up times were given and most artists that were in the park area of the show waited 2-3-4 hours in their vans for the space to unload. We waited in that line too for an hour before we realized that we were in the wrong line. Okay, maybe that was our fault...but the whole thing was so confusing.
It was one stupid thing after another....with so many foo-pas that it became quite funny. I could go on and on about the little annoyances but I will spare you my warping about having no coffee available at the artists breakfast and cold hard bagels without butter or cream cheese. I say Do it right, or just don't. Most shows don't even give breakfast to us....so perhaps I shouldn't complain.

The most unusual thing that happened to us was when we were instructed to park our little travel trailer and van in a city lot. All was fine, lots of space for artists RV's and trailers. We woke the following morning and turned off the noisy fan, (it drowns out all street noise so we can sleep) We heard voices.....lots of voices...right outside our window! We peeked out to find the Saturday morning breakfast soup kitchen for the homeless setting up for the day...There were at least 100 people milling around. This event happens every Saturday in the same spot....you'd have thought the art festival committe would have informed us to park at the other end of the lot. Our trailer was in the middle of the breakfast, obviously in the way, in the middle of a prayer meeting and the middle of the staging area for the band that was setting up.
It was rather awkward to step out of our trailer all dressed up, when most of the people had relatively nothing.
They waved good morning, we waved back before heading down to the show four blocks away. I am sure they would have offered us coffee........

Break down at any show is always awful even in the best of run shows. This one looked to be an even worse nightmare. We wheeled everything out by hand rather then deal with the comming chaos and got out of there in good time. I felt so sorry for the ones who couldn't....

So....Be carefull for what you wish for.....you might just get it.