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!

If by chance, your hall happens to be part of a church, you could ask permission to use the sanctuary.
Laying quilts over the pews, can put on quite a show!!

If you're wanting more stands to hang quilts ... any chance that you could arrange with the group and hour away to borrow theirs? Of course, with the understanding when their next show comes, they can borrow yours!

Sounds like you already have plans well thought out ... Good Luck!!

I used to belong to a very small guild in Oregon. We had an annual quilt show for many years, then changed to every other year when the effort to do an annual show became too much, especially as the guild membership was aging and fewer people could really help out. We usually held the show in a school gym, a church, or a community center. The picture below is from one of the shows held in a gym.

We could count on having over 100 quilts, some small, some quite large, and we invited members of the community to bring in their quilts as well as those made by guild members. We owned quite a few quilt stands, mostly made from PVC by members or their husbands, and usually the facility also had things we could use to hang quilts, such as room dividers. Sometimes we were allowed to pin smaller quilts to the walls. We charged for admission and had door prizes and raffle baskets with all kinds of things, mostly donated by local businesses. One guild member wrote to major fabric suppliers asking for donations and was surprisingly successful. (We had a non-profit designation.)

Sometimes we also had a bed turning at various times during the quilt show. Someone brought in a blow-up mattress, and we stacked quilts on it, then talked about each quilt as the one above it was removed. Sometimes the quilts were vintage, but we also put in modern quilts and talked about the pattern. Another favorite activity was having guild members doing hand applique, embroidery, or other types of sewing and answering questions.

I enjoy going to the big professional quilt shows, but I really enjoy the small local shows more. Good luck with yours.

That's a great idea to have as a program event!!
There's such a wide range of topics that could be covered during a bed turning!
And what an interesting way to present the info, rather than a typical lecture format.
Or with someone standing and holding a quilt.

I like all of the suggestions, our guild also had a raffle quilt, that the members participated in making and selling tickets for. We usually made quite a bit of money on it.

My guild has a quilt show every other year. We have a lot of quilts and have judges come in to judge the quilts. In addition to vendors, we had a raffle quilt and raffle baskets that different bees and groups within the guild donated. There is a booth to sell things that one group made during the past 2 years and a "garage sale" aisle with donated items that were for sale. The guild does quite well from it. They also got vendors to sell food so that the members didn't have to bother with that.

I've kept this part of your statement because......It seems this community was more invested in your show than what I've seen at the guilds I've experienced. The floor of this gym caught my eye. It seems to be carpeted. The gyms we used had no carpeting. Also, we could start after school activities on Friday. We'd have it hung in 3-4 hours.

I think the people in small communities tend to be more invested in what goes on. I was a newcomer to the area, but many of the guild members had lived there all their lives and knew just about everyone in town. Directions to get somewhere usually included "turn right at where the XXX used to be" when XXX had moved from that location 30 years ago. Now that I live in a much more populated area I'm finding that there is very little community support for guild activities, possibly because so few people hear about them.

I would guess that the room we used had once been only a gym, but was now used as auditorium/gym/classroom/whatever was needed. It was part of a charter school.

Advertise, advertise, advertise!! If you have a local newspaper and/or radio station, try to get them interested in spreading the word. Maybe arrange a photo op of some of the quilts or venues. Make sure to have direction signs on roads. And make sure they are taken down in a speedy manner after the event.

I'm sure you've thought of this, but just in case....insurance!! Not only for slips and falls but for the exhibits too. And you really need White Glove folks. They act as information givers but also as Don't Touch Police. They are there to turn back the edge of a quilt so that the back can be viewed. Some places will have white gloves or plastic gloves available to the attendees so they can be allowed to touch the quilts. Nothing worse than returning a quilt to an exhibitor with a stain from handling.

Not every display has to be a bed quilt. How about runners, placemats, quilted clothing, bags or totes, Christmas tree skirts..the possibilities are almost endless. Tables can be used for such displays.

I so agree with this. I live on the outskirts of Houston and do car shows. I enjoy the shows in the country much more than those in the city. There is a lot less to do so the whole town shows up for any activity and they really seem to enjoy it. Our quilt show is mostly attended by our guild with a smattering of people from other guilds and the public. There's so much to do here on a weekend that it's hard to attract people unless it's something they are really interested in.