This past weekend, we "put the season to bed" with the final arts and crafts show of 2022. Taking place (usually) during the 2nd weekend of December, it's a pretty "gifty" venue, and typically an opportunity to round out the year with some pretty solid sales.
Our booth at the Holiday Show
The only real downside is that the show is more likely to draw "gift buyers" than "art buyers," which typically results in it being a little lower end than we are used to. Still, it's a very large and old (this was the 35th edition) and juried show, so we're always happy to participate.
Back on the Show Circuit
This was our 4th event of an abbreviated 2022 season... we did our first post-pandemic show in July, and were really just using this year to get back in the swing of doing art shows. I expect we'll participate in 8-10 events in 2023.
It was nice to be back in the public space, though. Online sales (alone) hasn't ever been very successful for Alchemy Stones... we always do much better when we can get the stones into people's hands... photographs just don't offer up the same impression.
Right in the Middle...
The show seemed to be quite well attended, and there were parts of Saturday that were outright busy, which is something we haven't seen since 2018.
On the whole, though, a lot of people seemed very cautious with their money — probably just a sign of the times — and it was noticeable that most attendees weren't carrying bags or boxes... a fairly reliable indicator that there were more "lookers" than buyers.
In the end, it was pretty much what I would describe as a "middling" event, from a financial aspect... we definitely made back our booth fee and some upgrades to our show set-up fixtures.
That said, we had hoped for a bit more than the $859.50 we ended up with at the end... which — as usual — left us having made less than $7/hour, after booth fees and expenses were taken into consideration.
Just goes to show that art is still not something you should hang your hat on making any sort of a living from!
Looking Forward to 2023
Without a doubt, we will be taking on more events in 2023. Likely, the 2023 "season" will start with the UFO-Paranormal Summit in March... although not really an "art" event, this has historically been by far our most successful outside show. Seems that those into the paranormal have a much above average appreciation for the spiritual and sacred geometry aspects of Alchemy Stones.
With 8-10 events, we hope to make it back to at least somewhere close to our sales levels in 2018-19. The whole Coronavirus circus really did throw the business end of Alchemy Stones for a loop.
2023 will also reprsent my "formal" 15th anniversary of painting mandalas and sacred geometry patterns on stones... so that's kind of cool. Means I have lasted longer than most aspiring artists out there!
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