Reply #44: Hugs to you, AnneD, [View All]

[Tansy_Gold]

Lost an old friend to leukemia a few weeks ago, so I guess we're all going through it to one extent or another. Cruel, cruel autumn.


I will be mainly in lurk mode for the next eight weeks or so. Holiday arts & crafts show season is upon me and I have signed up for more than I had inventory for, so what moments I can spare from the paying gig I must devote to the art. Plenty of material, far less inspiration, virtually no confidence. Two most recent shows have been quite disappointing. Not failures, but not the successes they have been in the past.

As I was explaining to friends this morning over our social coffee, I think there are numerous reasons for the decline in sales at arts & crafts shows this year. The economy in general, of course, as too many people are feeling the pinch in the budget and discretionary spending is down.

But it hits on the other side, too, especially here in central Arizona where the weather is just about at its best right now and the influx of winter visitors has started its annual cascade.

Artists who might have done two or three shows a year and made a good income from it are now doing five or six and not bringing in nearly the same revenue. More and more non-art organizations are turning to the "craft fair" as a means of raising funds. Schools, churches, service organizations are sponsoring more and more events, charging a modest fee for a booth or a table plus a percentage of each artist's proceeds. People who used to dabble in a crafting hobby -- knitting, woodworking, painting, etc. -- are turning to the hobby to provide replacement income after job losses and hours cutbacks. Those who never had a hobby because they never had time for one suddenly find themselves with too much time, and too little income. So there is much more competition -- more shows, more exhibitors -- for the fewer and fewer shopping dollars.

What percentage of the money spent at these shows and fairs will end up never being reported to any government agency is a good question. I believe it was during a previous recession that someone estimated 10% of the national economy was black or grey market, an "underground" economy of cash and barter, untaxed, unreported. I wonder what percentage it is now.



Tansy Gold, who will check in as she has time.