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SURFING for SHOWS for SELLING-SEASON

© Barbara Massie

Answering craft business questions seems to be what I do best and recently the question of how to find holiday season shows has been popping into both my snail-mail and e-mail baskets quite frequently. Many creative people are concerned about getting into shows that are booked early for the big selling-season starting in September and on through January. Planning a schedule is difficult unless you can find the shows that suit your product.

NOW is the time to search for shows to put on your schedule for that busy selling-season. Find sources of profitable arts and crafts shows and secure booth space in shows of your choice. Get into the "cream of the crop" shows and you won't get stuck in low-volume, no-profit shows because that is all that are left with space.

We have a wonderful tool in the Internet. But surfing the Web for sources is difficult since show guide listings do not have common titles and one must search in many ways.

I have done some searching and surfing for you and come up with a listing of information to help. Use the following web sites to find shows in your area, or if you are an adventuresome traveler, find shows outside the continental United States.

Find festivals along with arts and crafts shows and fine arts events around the US at Festivals Online. Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses give you access to more information on specific shows. Shows listed with Internet addresses will treat you to wonderful web pages. Each web page has separate links to history of the show, sleeping accommodations, information about the area, show schedule, etc. This site is a delight.

Enter Debby's Craftmall to find a unique show web site. Click on Craft Calendar. Bring up a calendar page for the month in which you want to do a show. A calendar page comes up that shows a block for each day of that month. Look at each day's option of shows listed by city and state. Choose a show either by date or city, click and see a list of shows for that date. Some shows on the list will have complete information, others that have been reported have little information. But E-mail Debby at debby@grafix-net.com. and she will give you a contact.

Arts 'n Crafts Show Guide is a site where you must register and log-in to access the show guide - but it's FREE. There are 20 categories with more than 1000 shows from which to choose. To find longer listings in a wider window, just don't fill in all of the blanks. For instance, choose a category, then the month (ex: September) of interest. You will see all September shows listed with complete show information, statistics and a contact person.

The copyright of the article SURFING for SHOWS for SELLING-SEASON in Crafts is owned by Cheryl Lewis. Permission to republish SURFING for SHOWS for SELLING-SEASON in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.