The Wrong Side of the Tracks

Quakertown was the worst of my shows and the best of my shows so far. Everything that can go wrong went wrong with it. Sales were low for me and the other artists I talked to. There was a main town square area where most of the artists were along with most of the crowd. That was on one side of the railroad tracks. I was down the street with a handful of other artists away from the main action on the other side of the tracks. After a few hours of good weather the sky darkened up and the wind started. I had to hold my booth down multiple times to keep it from blowing away (and yes I use weights with it but they were only ten pound weights. That apparently doesn't even faze a strong wind gust.) Then mid-afternoon they told us to pack up and go home because the weather was supposed to get really bad. It actually didn't but the show was over at that point.

But.... I had the highest percentage of passing people come into my booth of any place I've been so far. And I received a lot of very positive feedback from a lot of people. I also went through as many business cards in that period of time as I have for other whole shows. I went from seeing most people walk by my booth to seemingly as many come in as walk by. And my work was solicited for a local gallery. This show really had a different vibe to it- somehow my work seemed to resonate with a lot of the people coming through. I'm not sure why that was.

There were a number of times I was talking shop with some amateur photographers who were several decades older than myself. People coming through the booth would keep complimenting the older men I was talking to on the work. Age prejudice I guess.

I will keep coming back to this area also. This event reinforced my new show strategy- a very exciting development. More in the next post.