Bard on the Beach Artisan Market – reflections on my first art market

Many of my artist friends participate in art fairs and art markets. Typically, that means hauling your artworks to a temporary location, setting up a tent and hanging out at the site for several days.

While they can be a great way to connect with art lovers and new collectors, you need a lot of inventory and a lot of stamina; most events run for a weekend or longer!

When I saw the call for local artists to participate in the first ever Bard on the Beach Artisan Market AND saw that each event was only two hours long, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to dip my toe in the art fair world.

Here are my top take-aways (lessons to be applied when I return to the market on August 31st and September 11).

• Arrive early; setting up always takes longer than you think. We were fortunate, as Bard on the Beach had a tent, with lighting and props, in place. They provided the tables as well, so all we really needed to bring was our artwork.

• Bring lots of different ways to hang your sign; I have a 48 x 12 inch banner that I planned to hang from the front of the table with zip ties. Problem was, the table legs wouldn’t cooperate and didn’t work with my planned system. The 8 x 11 inch, table top sign was a bit too small to be effective. Next time I’ll be bringing some string and a few butterfly clips!

• Add verticality to your display; I transported my paintings in white, wooden crates that were easily tilted on their sides to display items on. And, I was fortunate to have an interesting prop next to my table that I could lean my larger piece against and display a few Petite Paper Paintings on. One of the other artists had a really interesting tabletop shelving unit that really made her display stand out. Next time, I’ll be bringing an easel that I can place behind the table to draw the eyes up!

• Don’t try to display too many items; I knew that it would be important to have work at different price points available; for a market like this, where people have to carry things around for the rest of the evening, small (and affordable) is best. I chose to bring three different sizes of paintings (4 x 4, 5 x 5 and a few 6 x 6 inch framed pieces) and an assortment of art cards to create visual interest as well as variety in pricing. In looking at photos of my display (which I thought looked great, on the whole), I can see that I may have had a few too many pieces on offer. I was reminded of that old marketing study which found that too many options often leads to people leaving empty-handed.

• Engage, engage, engage; people need to be encouraged to interact. I found that when I offered information about the work and told them about my 100-Day Project, conversations flowed and people asked all sorts of questions. Of course, not everybody that passes by is interested, so it’s important to be able to quickly gauge who is and who isn’t!

• Treat markets as marketing opportunities; while Bard on the Beach did a great job advertising the market, people’s primary objective for the evening was attending a play, not shopping for art. So while we had a couple of hundred sets of eyes on our displays, only a small proportion of attendees were interested in engaging with the artists and purchasing our work. Given that many event-goers arrived just minutes before the show started (and then needed to make a beeline to the bathroom and bar during the short intermission between acts), there wasn’t a lot of time for shopping. I realized, quite quickly, that there wasn’t going to be a flurry of sales and relaxed into the opportunity to practice talking to people about my art and art practice. I did hand out quite a few business cards, which is always a win!

• Spend some time chatting with your fellow artisans; I enjoyed getting to know several of the women who were vending alongside me. They had lots of experience with art fairs and were more than happy to offer bits of advice and share secrets! Because our tables were so close together, we were able to ‘play off’ one another when chatting with theatre goers. Oh and having someone to trade off bathroom breaks with is a life-saver too!

Bard on the Beach is featuring an Artisan Market during each of this summer’s performance of Comedy of Errors. I’ll be there again for both the matinee and evening productions on Saturday, August 31st and Wednesday, September 11th. If you have tickets for any of these performances, please do stop by to chat!