Show Planning

My first art fair is in two weeks, and here are some thoughts that have passed through my mind as I prepare:

- Even doing a moderate number of shows per year takes a lot of time. Just planning, re-planning, researching what changes to make, what equipment or supplies to buy, whether to change things or keep them the same, etc., etc. Looking for the best prices on certain items. This all takes time. Therefore less time for: family, photographing, housework, photographing, etc.

- In selecting images to print for the show I routinely go through older photographs to look for gems that I may have overlooked. I usually find a few, and that may not have happened if I didn't have a reason to go back through the archives. So that is a good thing.

- Selecting prints for the show is a difficult process. I have made a lot of photographs that I think are pretty good, but I realize they may not appeal to a general audience. So I have to choose images that I think may have universal appear. Well, not totally universal, but they at least should sell a few copies through the year. I have made some great choices and some not-so-great ones. Hopefully this year will tend towards the better ones.

- And the last point leads to another ... that doing a small number of shows is tough on inventory control, which directly affects profitability. If during the course of the year I try printing 20 new images and do only a handful of shows, but only 10 prints sell, then I'm stuck with 10 prints for the next year. Or maybe I'm just not sure if they were good or not, since there were so few shows to judge with. But if I do more shows then at least the "dogs" have a better chance of selling and I can quickly retire poor-selling images and work in better pieces to replace them. So doing fewer shows limits your ability to "move merchandise", good and not-so-good merchandise alike. Moving good merchandise is not the problem, but you have a harder time moving the "other" stuff as well.

- Planning for a successful year in a tough economic environment is ... well ... tough. Knowing that sales might take a hit means producing works that out-sell the competition, lowering prices, offering different products, or any number of other measures. Each measure is time-consuming and potentially costly, so as in any other business I have to weigh the potential risk-vs-reward. For example offering smaller prints is not very costly up front, but by doing so I may hurt sales of my larger prints. And lowering prices may increase the number of sales, but the overall revenue may not rise much if at all.

Hopefully I'll see you at one of my shows this year.