Monterey Art Show

We survivied our first real art show/craft fair in Monterey! We worked for weeks to get ready, printing photos, matting, framing, printing greeting and note cards, creating photo journals, and trying to organize everything.

On the day of the show, we awoke at 4am for the drive and it then took us three hours to set up and stock the booth. We were unorganized and looked like the Three Stooges at the Art Show. Finally, we stepped back and saw our booth.

...and then we waited, and waited for customers to stop by. Lots of people did come thru eventually and said nice things about the images. At 10:30am, a guy bought a favorite picture for $60.00! Our first Monterey sale!

Three other photographer/artists were at the show as well, and this one had great photos! He had an outstanding booth with $3,000 "ProPanels." His display was very nice, but I do not know how much he sold. And that folks, is the name of the game. You could have a $10,000 booth, but it's what you sell that counts.

Here's a good example: The "soap girls" were selling the like there was no tomorrow. They made designer soaps in their kitchen. Their booth was directly across from ours and we had to smell 40 different scents for two days. Worse than that, we had to listen to their little rap about the soaps for two days, and watch them ring up about $40 million in sales. At the end of the show, I wanted to beat them senseless with their friggin' soaps. I actually bought a manly bar for five bucks and used it yesterday. It was great.

Here I am talking to a customer. Here's how the conversation went: "No sir, we don't have soaps here, just photos. Soaps are across the way." Thank God for the helpfulness of the artists near us. The "wood guy", the "hat lady", the "jewelery girls" and even the "soap chicks" gave us good insights on the craftfair scene, the show circuit, the dos and don'ts, and the tips and tricks of the trade.

At the end of the first day, we had sold about $300. Most people just left their booth closed up, but with all of the merchandise inside! I wanted to load everything up into our car, but other artists convinced me to just leave it as they do. We left it all and it turned out fine. Here is my J&M Photography partner giving me that "I can't believe you got me into this" look. I am very proud of my sweetie, who worked tirelessly for two 15-hour days and never complained once.

Here's my sales pose which basically says, "Buy something mofo or I will kill you and your family!" It didn't work as well as I had hoped, but it was all that I had. We met a lot of people, sold some pics and enjoyed the show. I got to talk to a lot of people who love photography and even inspired a few. Some photography students stayed a while to talk and even two professors who taught photography at a local college. Lots of fun.

At the end of the two days, on Sunday, we had to pack up and it took forever. I just didn't want to be last. We were. The show ended at 5pm, and we finally left at 7:30pm after getting kicked out by the show promoter and the security guard. We made another $450 the second day, for a total of $750.00. After our motel costs, an expensive dinner, fees, and gas, we pocketed less than half of that, but learned a lot. Our next show is the Dublin St. Patrick's Day Festival March 15/16. We are ready!

Special thanks to Yanni, Lorraine, Niko, Glen, Lemoyne, Tim, and Margie for coming down to see us. It was great to see a friendly face.

Looks like were off to the races...