Festival Canopy

Lacey Lewis · 03-23-2006, 09:23 PM

Enzie, Allan, Heidi, Chris, thank you all so much for all of the help and input (and keep it coming by all means!) I am starting to feel a bit better. My focus right now is just getting the whole thing set up to take pics BEFORE Saturday night. Then I can after that is done, I can think about if I just need to replace the tent, or what else creative I can do because I really need to get my work and myself out in the public. I'm determined!

The plan for now is this: I will get some nuts and bolts to put through the holes where the joints snapped, I'll brush off the dirt and such that ended up on the canvas part, and I will tie the tent down to some cinder blocks that I found I had right in my own yard. Then hopefully I can at least get a booth shot out of it! Winds for Saturday aren't expected to go above 5 mph, so my fingers are crossed.

Chris, actually I think my gridwall might be heavier than what you are thinking of. I bought some heavy-duty ones that are 2' x 6', and 3 panels come in a box. Each box weighs 40 lbs! I have a total of 14 2' x 6' panels, and 2 2' x 4' panels. I hope they don't budge!

Heidi, I remember reading on this forum about your experience. I am glad that this happened in my yard instead of at a show! Luckily the shows I am looking at are short, local shows with the longest being 2 1/2 days.

When I was a child, I used to do all of this stuff with my dad. He sold merch at carnivals, and I remember standing in his large, sturdy tent while we watched the kind of tents I have fly away.

Lacey Lewis · 03-27-2006, 11:24 AM

Update: I managed to get the tent set up to take pics, but I will need to buy a new tent for the actual fairs, the 1st of which is May 7th. For this picture, I put new nuts and bolts throuhg the joints, and since the sides were so bent up I tied some twine to the joints from the inside, strung it out through the side wall, and tied it to a fence. The side appears straight in the pic, and I don't think that you'd see the string unless I pointed it out.

Luckily the bright sun also blew out the dirt, grass, and rust stains on the cover!

I am looking at some of what they have at Dick Blick, so if anyone has any reccomandations about tents available there please let me know.

Also, Chris, how much would you say each of your home-made weights weighs?

Enzie Shahmiri · 03-28-2006, 12:14 PM

Hi Lacey,

The tent looks just fine and there are no signs of the trauma sustained.

I am sure you have no problem getting accepted with this preliminary set up. I wish you the best of luck and hope that the show will bring you many new commissions.

Lacey Lewis · 03-28-2006, 12:30 PM

Thanks Enzie! I am rather impressed with how well the picture turned out, considering the condition that the tent is really in.

Now I wish I would have taken a picture when it was caught in the clothesline, bending and twisting, just for fun. I could've joked about submitting that photo!

Chris Saper · 03-28-2006, 10:58 PM

Lacey so sorry for the delay- I just took the scale down to the weight. The weight I picked was 20.5 pounds.

Carrying two of the weights at a time is a comfortable thing on my own. Maybe I could go 35 pounds, but there is alot of stuff I have to carry otherwise..a single woman putting up a tent is not easy.

Chris Saper · 03-28-2006, 11:04 PM

ps Before I bought my tent I talked to a quite a few exhibitors. Costco had the Caravan which was really inexpensive. EVeryone said that The Caravan was heavy and unweildy and that EZ- UPwas easier.

I don't doubt it but there is nothing easy about EZup.At least for me.

I got my tent on EBAY -a great deal.An EZ tent with 4 walls and a canopy for ( guessing here) about $450

I would not mind NEVER setting it up again.

Lacey Lewis · 03-28-2006, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Saper

ps Before I bought my tent I talked to a quite a few exhibitors. Costco had the Caravan which was really inexpensive. EVeryone said that The Caravan was heavy and unweildy and that EZ- UPwas easier.

I don't doubt it but there is nothing easy about EZup.At least for me.

I got my tent on EBAY -a great deal.An EZ tent with 4 walls and a canopy for ( guessing here) about $450

I would not mind NEVER setting it up again.

Thanks for the info! Anyone heard anything about "King Canopy?"

Lacey Lewis · 03-28-2006, 11:05 PM

Thanks, Chris! Your weights are nice looking, do you use more than one on a corner? I am so paranoid now, I think I'll aim for 40-50 lbs per pole!

I weighed one of my cinder blocks, and it was almost 50 lbs, but not as attractive.

Now I'll just have to find some beefy guys to haul it all around for me. I'm not very muscley myself.

Chris Saper · 03-28-2006, 11:10 PM

My PVC tubes were actually 3" - you could go 4 or 5 inches but the question is, could you carry them. I used one per pole and I liked that they are very slim and I could attach them to each corner very unobtrusively,

My very limited experience here was that I had about 1.5 hours of daylight to setup. I hired a boy scout to help me. Depending upon the venue the set up time can be very short.

Enzie Shahmiri · 07-02-2006, 05:05 PM

All I can say is hang in there. First show, no sales and no commissions. Later on I set up my easel and painted, which made people curious enough to stop and look. I did not generate any portrait commissions either, but I sold several small decorative paintings, tons of postcards of my work and added many names via the guest book to my mailing list. I did see other paintings sell though, and that made me wonder if maybe my prices were too high for the venue.

This year, besides displaying samples of portraits, I am going to offer prints mostly 8"x10"of some work along with the postcards and small pet portraits in oil . Don't forget to print brochures! I will be at two outdoor art shows and one street fair in September and figured if the paintings are affordable enough for browsers, it might lead to future portrait commissions that are priced higher.

I am looking at this as purely advertising, it is less costly than advertising in the paper and I get out of my studio and can gage how my work is accepted by the general public.

Should you stumble across the magic solution of how to generate sales at art shows, please share.