and dust yourself off. That's about all you can do after a very disappointing studio tour. Jeff and I spent half of Thursday and all day Friday, cleaning and rearranging our studio and gallery space. We didn't finish until 11:00pm, which is when we started to cook dinner.
I filled cache pots and vases with flowers and put our special event signs out by the road.
Our three "open" flags were flying outside at 9:45 in the morning. It was after 11:00 am before we saw people. It wasn't until noon that we had our first sale... $20.00.
But it didn't happen. We had a small amount of visitors, and three sales.
I can't even express how disappointed, and worried we are about how the weekend went. We were prepared for extra traffic, since we are now "in town". In the past this has been a REALLY good event for us. It has provided us with a boost in revenue, after the long slow winter. We are scrambling to find a way to recover.
Some say it's a new location and it will take time to re-establish. Perhaps, but ours sales were four times better during our first Spring studio tour, when hardly anyone knew who we were. One of the biggest drawbacks for us right now, is that we are in the wrong location on the Seagrove potters map. The new map was printed a few months before we moved. The studio tour map had us in the right location, but the map was extremely small this year and you needed a magnifying glass to read it. Most of our visitors said they weren't using the tour map, just the list of participants on one side and were cross referencing them on the big map... which has us in the wrong location.
Our best sale of the weekend came at 5:00 on Sunday, when a young couple came hurrying in and said,"We finally found you!". They drove by the log cabin and we weren't there. Eventually they landed at Creations, a gallery in town, who then told them where to find us. A big thank you to the fine folks who run the gallery!
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| photo credit: Lee Love |
If we are desperate, we just might.
Crap. Sorry to hear it, although your flowers are GORGEOUS.
ReplyDeletewhat a disappointment but your planted pots look so beautiful, love the one with the blue flowers and that bird bath, how cool is that, maybe a banner at the freeway overpass with "FESTIVAL IN TOWN" and then berma shave type signs that say keep going, you are almost there, just around the corner, etc.
ReplyDeleteThere were LOTS of people in town for the studio tour, they just didn't come to us. I really think that if the tour map was readable, we would have had more traffic. I heard that a couple of other potters, who aren't on the regular map, were slow too.
DeleteOh, man, I'm so sorry! Not for the faint of heart, the art business. I worry that the generation of semi conscious smartphone zombies will never look up to even know what hand made means..... and then when those from my generation are gone there will be no art buyers.....
ReplyDeletewhat to do! I like the dancing heads though :)
First one here was at 9 am. Covered up until after 2, small breather until just before 4, then last one rolled out at 5:30.
ReplyDeleteSunday was a wander lust of here and there.
We'll take what we can get.
Good to hear you had traffic, I hope it translated into sales. I really think not being at the right location on the big map hurt us. Let's face it, the studio tour map was totally useless.
DeleteWell Crap
ReplyDeletelets hope the maps are better next time
ReplyDelete