Tuesday Tips (Thursday This Week) - How did that show go?

Maybe some arty bead displays?

Really, truly I am not that organized. You only have to look at my dining room table to know that. But I do have a little penchant for the numbers game and evaluating any show that I do, bead or otherwise. Remember last week when I talked about that tedious inventory and planning process? When I got home I went back through the beads I brought to see what sold and entered all that back into my spread sheet. During a show I have very little feel for what’s selling. Now I know that in San Antonio I sell bright colours. Everywhere else I sell blues and greens. I also know what’s still in stock and can better plan for the Austin show in August. Best of all that inventory system is in place and I don’t have to do that tedious task again!

But I think there’s more to evaluating a show than what you sold. What was the attendance like? The organizers of a good show will let you know what the estimated attendance of the show was. This is a good way to get a feel for how well the show was promoted.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Are you a good match for the show? Think about the type of beads that were being sold at the show. In my case, I really wasn’t a great match. There was a lot of bright sparkly beads out there. Most people were buying bright sparkly beads and frankly, I don’t make bright and sparkly. I looked around at the type of jewelry people were wearing and for the most part it wasn’t anything like the style of my work. Nothing really wrong with the show, it just wasn’t a great match for my work.

What could you have done better? Think of a show as a learning experience. One thing I noticed was that people had questions about my beads but didn’t really know what to do with them. I think a lot of the people who stopped by were quite new to beading. Next time I will be bringing along a lot more examples of how you might use art beads. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say and this is one place where I could really up my game. Something you can turn over in your hand might be even better.

Finished jewelry with your art beads?

Do you see any future sales from the show? I used this show make a start at a quarterly newsletter. I also had several inquiries about wholesale at bead shops in the San Antonio area. Good thing I typed up that wholesale policy for Summers Studio the day before we left :-)

There are heaps of ways you might evaluate a show. This is just a little sample of the basic way that I look at it. It was my first bead show but it’s the same thing I do for other types of shows I do. However, you decide to evaluate the success of a show, it will give you a bench mark for your future efforts.