Have You Organized a Quilt Show for a Small Community?
The local guild members were somewhat lukewarm to an annual quilt show so a fellow member and I took on organizing a show to become an annual event. We believe in quilt shows! While I have experience organizing and running provincial level conferences, they are different and have always been held in hotels where there is a lot of support staff. A quilt show is new to me.
What do your quilt shows look like? I'm not asking about large, thousands of visitors type shows but smaller scale local shows. We are a guild of just over a dozen and only have stands to display 20 quilts so there are real limitations. But we want this to be splashy enough to attract visitors from neighbouring communities since the next nearest show is more than an hour's drive. More for many.
So, what have we done? We have a hall rented that is large enough to comfortably show our quilts along with space for a sale area and small tables for refreshments seating. There is a kitchen where we will assemble sandwiches and construct plates of sandwiches and goodies to go with tea and coffee. We have invited the local arts council members (only 4) to join us. Two are visual artists and will have a table where they can display artwork plus they will display on walls along the hall. Two others deal with glass and ceramics so their displays will take a bit more space. We're going to have a string ensemble to provide some background music for some of the day. We have invited local quilt vendors to set up tents in the parking lot and sell their stuff since there's not enough room in the hall for them. We're providing door prizes that can be won by drawing a lucky ticket when visitors pay their admission cost.
What else? Suggestions are welcome. Pitfalls to avoid are especially welcome. The area where we are has been hard hit lately with closures in our main industry which is logging. People are hurting. We need to work hard to make the show attractive enough that people will spend a few dollars to attend. I'm excited to take this on, but nervous about the outcome and want it to succeed. Thanks for your help!