Easter Wrap-up

I survived Easter weekend. It was a bit disappointing, but not nearly as bad as last year, and it did pick up a bit at the end. On the last day, I reserved two small pictures which will hopefully be paid for and picked up next weekend, until that, I'd only sold some greeting cards. At least it went better for me than the woman I was sharing my gallery with; she didn't sell a thing. That really surprised me, since her stuff is all one-of-a-kind and very artistic.

The weather was beautiful the entire weekend, though the breeze was cold, especially in the afternoons and on Sunday. The white anemones and daffodils started blooming just in thie, and the whole area looked beautiful. I also thought the gallery looked great. I only wish more people had come to see it. We had 52 visitors on the first day, and that is usually the busiest day. Based on previous years, 50 is about average for a good day, but I'd been hoping for more (or at least people who were a little more inclined to spend money).

Saturday was really disappointing with only 12 visitors. Luckily our friends from Denmark came in the afternoon, so the day wasn't a complete loss. In fact, this part was really fun, but more on that later. The Saturday before Easter is the day that Swedes celebrate Easter together with family (it's Easter eve, like Christmas eve or midsummer eve). So that's probably why it was a slow day, but my husband took our friends out to check out some other artists, and it wasn't nearly as slow anywhere they went.

Things improved a bit on Sunday with 36 visitors, but still not much for sales. The most frustrating thing with Sunday was that we'd had 10 cars that came and turned around without stopping. That after we'd strategically parked the back hoe in the woods to prevent people from turning around there where they could turn around without really noticing that they were almost here.

Monday was nice in that it wasn't windy and thus warmer than the previous days. We had 32 visitors and both one of the first and one of the last customers of the day wanted to buy one of my pictures. Of course, neither had much money with them, so they'll have to come back next weekend to pick it up. This still doesn't come close to even covering my costs for this exhibit, but it's better than nothing. I admit that I wasn't really expecting to turn a profit from this, but breaking even on expenses (not counting my time) would have been nice. Two years ago one of the visitors who happened to come by my exhibit was the father of a the groom who was helping to plan the wedding. He loved my photobooks, and I ended up booking them for my deluxe wedding package. Last year, I booked a family portrait session as the result of the exhibit. Thus marketing of my services is the reason that I continue to dedicate so much effort to the Easter art show thing.