Art Hop

This weekend was the 19th year for the SEABA Art Hop. The Art Hop is a large festival where a lot of local artist show their work along Pine Street in South Burlington, Vermont. Friday night is usually the big night with a lot of music, artists, etc. The crowds are generally pretty good.

So, last night, I had my paintings hanging in the hallway of the Maltex building (on the second floor). I made sure that I was there between 5:00 - 8:00 (pm).. later, if there were going to be a lot of people to talk to. I also brought some mailing address cards to see if I could start to collect contact information for mailings.

Now, for the most part, the Art Hop is more about exposure than sales. There are rarely any sales at this festival. It's a great way to get new artists to show their work and to make contacts. So, I wasn't expecting any sales for this weekend.

However, around 8:00, I was noticing that there wasn't a lot of people that were showing up on my floor. Matter of fact, I probably talked to about 40 or 50 people for the entire time that I was there. Some of the people mentioned that the first floor was jam-packed with people. So, naturally, I thought, they'll be coming upstairs. They didn't. When I decided to leave around 8:30, the outside street was JAMMED with people. Lots of places you could barely walk. The building that I was in was almost devoid of people. The buildings across the street had a ton of people.

So, that means that, if I'm going to do this again, next year, I need to get my work into one of the business buildings rather than the Maltex. 'Course, I need to think about this over the next year. Exposure doesn't equate sales. It only equate sales in places where people are planning to spend money.