The Year in Review

[DeliaStone]

     Back in June of last year VT Exhibitor posted inquiring about how other artists had done for thier spring shows.  Unfortunately, no one responed with any real personal analysis.  I thought it was a worthy question though and I thought I would create a new thread based upon VT's inquiry.  Now that all of 2009 is behind us, we can now review the whole years shows rather than just the spring shows.

     This past year I only did one spring show, one summer show and one winter show.   I can say that all three shows were down.  My spring show was down by 40% (ouch! - and yet I did much better than most others at this show) and feedback from other artist in my area had a similar experience - some worse even.  My Summer show was down by about 20% and my fall show was up by about 25%.  So spring and summer were down but my winter show was up a little.  

     Would anyone else care to share their experiences?  I would be very interested in any other feedback on 2009 shows.

Thanks in advance for your reply!  

[TimAllen]

Well, we're still new in this business, so there is only one show that we've done two years now. Our gross for the 2009 show was about 35% higher than our gross for the 2008 show (and at the time, we were pretty happy with that result!). Of course, we're still learning and improving our product and presentation, which might help explain our increase.

[DeliaStone]

A 35% increase is good growth for a second year.  One thing I discovered when I first started out was that my revenue began to build at my repeat shows as customers from the previous year came back looking for me the second year, then the third and so on.  Eventually sales peak and it runs a little up or down from there.  That has certainly been true for my staple summer show. The weather no doubt had an affect on the sales this year.  It was hot and muggy and we had showers on and off all three days.  Honestly I was surprised at how many people still came out.  Mid September in Florida is already hot and humid - add short bursts of rain followed by plenty of sunshine to make it good and steamy and can be nearly unbearable. 

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Tim.  I hope your sales grow another 35% this year.