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A Plein Air Festival Needs ONE Home
With the exception of Estes Park’s plein air festival, every other festival on my circuit in 2009 was lucrative, and well put together. Estes Park’s festival is well organized as well, except for the ending show, or shows I should say, which results in LOW SALES. The root of the problem is that a plein air festival is best presented at the end of the week in ONE place. That place is best if it’s a center for art appreciation, a community center, training center, or a museum. The way they have it organized in Estes Park is that they jury in about 50-60 artists, and then split them up between privately owned and operated galleries (in and out of town sometimes) and the Cultural Art Center of Estes Park. This creates an every gallery for themselves sort of feel and the artists suffer greatly, not to mention how difficult it must be to judge the event. The Cultural Arts Center did nearly 5 times the sales that the gallery that I was in did on opening night. I’m not one to complain or have sour grapes, but that is not an event that I would recommend to other artists, unless you by luck, get in and are represented by the Cultural Arts Center.
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