Selling your work at an art or craft show can be a great way to reach new customers, build your reputation and grow your art business. But being ready for a show involves a lot more than simply having enough work to fill a booth.
Before you start paying application fees and packing the car, ask yourself these 10 questions.
1. Is Your Business Set Up?
Are you operating as a real business? Have you registered your business as required in your state, and do you understand the licenses, permits and tax requirements that may apply?
Just as important: Do you have appropriate business and liability insurance? Many shows require participating artists to carry insurance.
2. Are Your Finances Ready?
Do you have a separate business bank account?
Keeping your art business finances separate makes it much easier to track income, expenses and profitability—and to understand whether your art business is actually making money.
3. Do You Have an Online Presence?
Do you have a professional website and social media accounts for your art business?
People who discover you at a show may want to learn more about you later. Make sure they can easily find your work, understand what you make and contact or purchase from you.
4. Do You Have Professional Images of Your Work?
Good photographs are essential.
Juried shows frequently make their decisions based on photographs of your artwork. Poor images can make excellent work look mediocre.
You should know how to photograph, crop, straighten, color-correct and prepare images that meet a show's submission requirements.
5. Are You Ready to Take Payments?
Cash alone isn't enough.
You should have a reliable way to accept credit and debit cards and understand how your payment system works before the show begins.
Think about internet access, charging your devices, receipts, sales tax and what you'll do if technology doesn't cooperate.
6. Is Your Booth Ready?
Your booth is your temporary gallery.
Have you purchased or arranged for the tent, pipe and drape, panels, tables, lighting, signage and other equipment you'll need?
More importantly, have you planned how your work will actually be displayed?
A professional booth should be inviting, easy to navigate and designed to make your artwork the focus.
7. Is Your Brand Clear?
Can someone walking past your booth quickly understand who you are and what you make?
Your booth, signage, business cards, website, packaging and social media should feel like they belong to the same artist and business.
You don't need a complicated brand. You need a clear and consistent one.
8. Are You Applying to the Right Shows?
Not every art show is right for every artist.
Before spending money on application fees, booth fees, travel and lodging, investigate the show.
What kind of work is exhibited? What are the typical price points? Who attends? Is the show truly juried? How long has it existed? Do artists return year after year?
A busy show isn't necessarily a profitable show for you.
9. Do You Know How to Price Your Work?
What are you worth?
Pricing should be more than choosing a number that feels right—or copying what another artist charges.
Your prices need to account for materials, labor, overhead, selling expenses and profit while still making sense within your market.
And remember: sales are not the same thing as profit.
10. Can You Talk About—and Sell—Your Work?
Someone walks into your booth and asks:
“Tell me about your work.”
What do you say?
Every artist should be able to explain what they make and why it matters in two or three natural sentences.
You don't need a rehearsed sales script. You need to be comfortable starting a conversation, answering questions and helping an interested customer become a buyer.
So, Are You Show Ready?
If you answered YES to all 10 questions, you're in a good position to start researching shows and submitting applications.
If you answered NO or I'M NOT SURE to several of them, that's useful information too. You've just identified the areas of your art business that need some attention before you invest significant time and money in exhibiting.
MAYKYN Can Help
You already know how to make your art.
MAYKYN helps you learn the business of selling it.
Our Business of Art courses are designed around the practical things working artists need to know—from photographing artwork and choosing shows to pricing, marketing, galleries and building a professional art business.
No MBA required. No need to become a marketing expert.
Just practical business knowledge that helps you make better decisions, avoid costly mistakes and spend more time making art.
