FEATURED SHOW REVIEW
August 2007
Oklahoma
May 11-13, Arts For All, Lawton. Contact: Arts for All, Inc., PO Box 592, Lawton, OK 73502; phone 580-248-5384. E-mail: drgill3303@sbcglobal.net. Web site: www.lawtonafa.org. Application fee: $15. Space fee: $165. Space size: 10x10. 100% outdoors. Exhibitors: 80. Hours: 4-8 Friday, 10-8 Saturday, 11-5 Sunday.
By Brad Foster
Texas Reporter
E-mail: jabberwocky2000@hotmail.com
Medium: Pen-and-ink drawing
This was my third year at Arts For All, and although my sales were down (as they have been at many other shows this year), that was the only disappointing aspect of what is becoming one of my favorite shows. There were some predictions of rain at the beginning of the week, but it all cleared away in time for the show, and the weather ended up quite nice. If I had to be picky, I'd say it was somewhat muggy, but I'll take that over actual rainfall.
The Festival is set up in Shepler Park, a lovely park with lots of trees and shrubs, and the tents are positioned in and around these to create aisles with good traffic flow. So although you should plan for the standard 10x10 space, be aware that many of the locations have extra room to the sides, depending on where they are placed among the flora. You could also end up with an end spot, giving you even more display space. I'd recommend packing a few extra items to hang on those outside walls should you be lucky enough to get the additional space.
Because the show is in a park, you can't drive up to your space. The street along the front of the park is closed to traffic to allow artists to get as close as possible to unload. During setup at the 2007 show, committee members worked to keep vehicles from taking up parking spaces after unloading. This was particularly welcome, as many shows never enforce these types of rules. It only takes a few inconsiderate artists to make longer trips for others by parking their vans in restricted spots. But thanks to the Arts For All folks, things moved along nicely.
Artist extras included a hospitality tent open during the entire show, where you could get refills of soda and water as often as you wanted, as well as a steady flow of homemade cookies and cakes throughout the weekend. And if you couldn't make it to the tent, volunteers stopped by your booth to ask if you needed anything. The YMCA right next to the park offered artist-only access to their facilities as well. Even if you weren't interested in a workout, the clean indoor restrooms were quite welcome.
The biggest bonus came in the form of a complimentary breakfast on Sunday. This was no box-of-doughnuts affair, but a full hot breakfast cooked up right there by volunteers. It featured eggs, sausage, bagels, biscuits, fruit, juices and champagne! And even with all the hungry artists, staff members were happy to load your plate up a couple of times if you needed some extra energy for the day, or were just really a hound for breakfast food, like me.
Another nice touch was the fact that the Oklahoma sales tax was collected at the end of the show by way of a simple, single-page form. You just needed to fill in your total sales, do a little math, write a check and turn it in at the hospitality tent. Why can't other states make it this easy to pay?
Excellent sales on Friday evening led me to hope for a good overall show, but it all slowed down considerably for the rest of the weekend. My Saturday sales were barely equal to that good start on Friday, and things moved slowly on Sunday as well. Lots of people came, but more looking than buying seemed to occur. In summing up sales, a painter said with a half smile and a small shrug, "I've done better."
The Lawton area had experienced a bad flood the week before the show. Plus, gasoline was at $3.11 a gallon at every (and I do mean every) gas station in town. Those weren't the only reasons for the lower sales, but when you're not doing as well as you would hope at a show, you try to come up with logical reasons to explain your performance. Those are simply two things that come to mind.
The consensus among most of the artists I spoke with was that the show was worth another try. A sculptor who had experienced a number of bad shows this year, and had traveled a fair distance to this show instead of doing one closer to his home, said he would try the closer show next year in order to keep his costs down. My own sales were about half of what I had done here previously. But because that has been the trend for just about all my shows this year, I still plan on returning to Lawton, in hopes that this is a short-term dip and the good sales will be back.
