Success!

Well, I sold an ACEO at the art market tonight. I’m happy with that, considering that it was my very first art/craft fair/market kind of thing. I also learned a lot tonight.

• Just because the council says it goes from 6 – 8 p.m. doesn’t mean you only exhibit during that time. If you are up earlier or teardown later, no biggie. (next time: I’ll be set up by 5:30 p.m. and will remain up until 8:30 p.m.)
• Just because the council says you can only have a 6 foot wide area doesn’t mean you have to stick with only 6 feet of space. Anything just short of a 10×10 foot booth will do, apparently. (next time I’ll lay out my tables differently AND I’ll take our card table as well)
• Call the council a week in advance and BEG them to put you on the other, more shady side of the street next time so you don’t suffer from heatstroke again. (This is a must – the side I was on tonight was in view of the setting sun the entire time. Thusly, I sweated copiously and unattractively the entire time).
• Give yourself more space to paint instead of only allowing a small little 12″x12″ spot on the table be your workspace. (see: card table I mentioned above)
• Next time, bring your pegboard with you anyway so that you can go ahead and hang some of your work rather than laying it all flat on the table.
• Ahead of time, fill out your cash invoice slips with all the shop information so that all you have to do is fill in the item purchased, the price and the tax. This way you don’t waste the buyer’s time while you fill out the whole thing for a measly $4.50 (including tax) sale.

The pluses? On the way home I thought of a great setup for next time. I got a lot of positive feedback despite lack of sales. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. I think about 20 people took my business card and just as many took my postcard. At least one woman told me she would contact me about doing a fleece baby blanket for an upcoming shower she was attending. My pricing seems okay, although I didn’t go look at other booths to see what others were charging. However, no one seemed *insulted* by my asking prices, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

Tonight it seemed like there were a lot of people LOOKING but no one really buying. Even the jewelry booth across the street had a lot of lookers but I only saw her bagging up one purchase.

So all in all I’m pleased with how it turned out. My booth banner looks AWESOME and will look even more amazing on the actual tent booth. I’m so happy I made that investment. My artwork looks really nice in natural daylight – very vibrant and warm (I got a lot of compliments on the bright color choices). And with that, I head to bed. CootieGirl comes home tomorrow and we’re all very excited although you’d never know it since our house is a mess.