Fear of this economy took over any rational thoughts about doing the show.
For customers and wholesale accounts who were planning on stopping by I apologize. I will be uploading all of my new work to our website shortly and will be sending out an email when they're ready.
What's next....who knows?
Once again....sorry.
8 comments:
Sorry to hear it. But think of it this way, by dropping out you're allowing someone else to roll the dice. The reports I've heard from Philadelphia are frightening. I think you made the right decision.
My opinion: The show is already too big and too expensive, the economics don't bode well. With your website and previous accounts I don't think it will be too hard to put together the orders you may have taken in Balto. It may just mean a few more phone calls. No problem! Just think of what you can do with the money you would have spent!
Sorry to hear that you won't be at the show this weekend. I was looking forward to meeting a handful of potters from the blogosphere and you were one of them. However, I can understand your reasons for backing out. One question though, (and I am totally ignorant of how this show works) but is there a fee to exhibit and have you lost that fee by not going?
Hey, I don't blame you. It's hard to eat the deposit but it would have been terrible to have went, spent all that time and money and not had a good show. Sarah and I have both done the same thing before with shows. You gotta follow your gut.
The last Baltimore show Idid was in 2003 -- the year of the Great Baltimore Blizzard. I ate from vending machines for three days because the city was shut down. Needless to say, I took no orders form the vendors who weren't there.
It was just the nial in the coffin, though. I had already pretty much come to the comclusion that ACC has gotten WAY too expensive, for an outfit that supposedly exists to benefit artists. It's really for large production studios, now.
Thanks all. I guess I need to blog more often....it has been so long since I've been blogging that I didn't think anyone was reading anymore.
Jerry, I did lose some money...my deposit but not the entire booth fee. As Ron said, it could have been a lot worse if I went an sales didn't go well. The shows are expensive to do, as you can tell from the other comments here.
I do think you all are right about the economics of a big show like Baltimore. I think that as a potter it just doesn't work anymore. The days of us potters selling out of our booth spaces are long gone at the big shows. The retail part is just too big and 3 days isn't that long when you're trying to sell stuff....of course, when sales are slow it feels dreadfully long. The idea of wholesale looked worse and worse the closer I got to the show. Michael, you're right....hopefully someone else gets my nice big corner booth space and does well for themselves.
The upside is that today is my son's 6th birthday. I have missed a couple of them by being in Baltimore and I'm glad to have been here to celebrate. He did take his very first steps in the hotel room in Balitmore way back in 2004 but....with 3 kids...shows are a solo thing for me now.
Well...this was long enough to be a blog post. Thanks again everyone for the kind words and support.....Time to figure out which galleries need some phone calls!
all the stuff said goes double for me. you made the right choice.
glad you're back blogging :)
Yea, now if we could only figure out a way to syndicate our blog content!
;-)
Let's go make some pots!
Well, in defense of the wholesale/ retail ACC show in Baltimore: I do have fond memories of making it big there once, but that was a long time ago, when the economy was flying high. But even it was kind of expensive. It was all worth it if you did the retail part of the show, because you could pay down the credit card afterwards. Also, I established my business by making a lot of wholesale pots over those years. It made my pots more fluid from the sheer numbers in the making and got me in contact with folks putting together group shows. Now it seems that many galleries have decided to hold giant group shows of the "dubious" kind in lieu of committing to wholesale buying. This happens especially in the months leading up the holidays when they need a lot of "free" inventory. I can't tell you how many "offers" I get to show my work in group shows at that time of the year. You may get paid if something sells, and you may get lucky to have the gallery return unsold work. But don't get me started. This is after all, about ?? Javi's birthday!
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