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Artists Alley 2013 Rant and Rave

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hieis_girl1:
So now that Kumoricon is over for the year, Jen and I would LOVE to hear everyone's opinions on this year's Artists Alley. The good and the bad. So please let us know!


And if you have rants to send out way, we would really appreciate it if you could give us constructive criticism about why you didn't like it, and what we could do to improve it for next year. Because it's difficult to do much with "I didn't like it" or "___ was bad/didn't work/etc" as opposed to "I didn't like ___ because ____ and you can maybe try ____ for next year."


Neither Jen or I will respond much to the comments on here unless there is a question that someone would like answered, simply because we want to know what worked for everyone and didn't work.


And please let us know if you were one of the Artists that participated this year, too!

RoriLei:
I didn't really like that it was in the basement, since I couldn't get phone service it there. On Day 1 I had to leave and couldn't track down my friends who were carrying all of my stuff because they were down there. I liked it much better when it was at the Red Lion last year.

Not sure if there's much you can do to change this, but I noticed that there wasn't as many sales on Monday as there was 2012, which was a little disappointing. But I do understand this is at the artist's discretion, so I can't really complain to you about it too much.

And also, I do love the art prints, but unfortunately I don't have much space on my walls. I was hoping to find more things like pillows or t-shirts with artists' prints on them, so I think a bit more in that area would help improve it for next year.

Lysenis:
The few things that got me in order of most annoying to least were:

Meadowhaven not showing day 1. Sorry I don't know about all the other artists and artisans that signed up but were denied, but that was a HUGE piss me off. I wanted a spot SOOO badly and they don't show? Slap in the face to everyone not chosen there

Quality and types of work. I saw more Artists than artisans, pretty much 2 to 1 there. Now while I understand its a "anime convention" many artisans make things for anime. I know I do. My inlays or some other works while not hugely artsy it gets pretty good.

Some of the works were not even hand made. I mean you had "Made in China" on a few things. . . Really!? Really.

Lack of credit. This is due to being underground. Sales for AA would of been MUCH higher if credit was available for vendors and dealers.

Yup pretty much my hates of this AA.

I did like the art though. The actual artists were amazing! Now yes this seems biased against the artisans but I am an artisan not an artist so I. Am more critical of other artisans than artists.

Transimage:
My tablemates and I walked around for at least thirty minutes looking for Artist Alley registration this year. We were told in the email to go to the Hilton garage, but when we got there, nobody knew where to send us; instead of letting us through to the Artist's Alley, (the sign was visible a few yards past the entrance to the Exhibitors), we were turned around and sent between station to station just to find out where we needed to check in. Check-in is a simple thing, but still pretty important! I'd like it if more staff were better informed about AA next year, since this was also an issue that came up last year.

My biggest concern is that Artist's Alley was nearly indiscernible from the Exhibitors Hall this year, making it extremely difficult for AA to make decent sales. Our wares were constantly being compared to dealers' merchandise; I shouldn't even have to explain why this is a serious concern for all of us coming out of this year's Alley. Having to compete with mass-marketed items (and yes, things that are Made-in-China)sitting literally five seconds away isn't very fun! I'd really love it if we could separate Artists from the Exhibitors again, like in past years, or at least make the partition much clearer, or AA easier to access/navigate.

Another big downside was the inability to get a signal... I know a lot of artists weren't able to take payment in cards due to this, and of course it hurt their sales. I can't say I know if vendors could get a signal, but even if they could, we totally couldn't. This problem is a lot more significant when you consider that the Artists were at the very back of the garage, where the signal is weakest. The garage itself was spacious but very humid and hot, even more so because of the weather. I understand Vendors tend to get priority when it comes to certain things, but I do feel that we just weren't put in a good position this year. The back of the garage was the most hot, the most humid, with the worst reception, and on top of that, somewhat confusing to navigate. It was a problematic place to be, all things considered.

And now for the positives of the Alley this year! Once again, our fellow artists and the staff were great. Everyone was very friendly and helpful; I really appreciated that there were people going around giving us cold cups of water, and generally making sure we weren't completely dying behind our tables. The lack of bathroom access was a minor issue, but when I asked I was allowed to use the staff elevator that went to the first floor. I'm not sure if that information was made clear to the rest of the Alley, however.

The Daily Raffle didn't block up traffic this year like it did last year, as far as I know, but then again it was on the other side of the room so I wouldn't really know. One big surprise was the Artist's Raffle. It's a fun idea and we definitely enjoyed that we had something to look forward to amid the stress and chaos of the weekend. Chairs and extension cords were plentiful, as well as availability of outlets, and lack of space was never an issue. Traffic was never overly congested, and I can personally attest that badge checking to get into the area was very thorough.

In the end, I still enjoyed the weekend. It wasn't without some frustrations but overall, still a fun experience. We appreciated the opportunity to be a part of AA this year. Thanks!

superjaz:
Some of the stuff was nice, tho not nearly as good as past years, first time in many years I haven't bought anything.
Normally I'd get some sculpty earrings but the ones I saw were more pricey then I'd expect compared to other similar AA items I have purchased previous years.

Some things were disappointing, like looking at one booth which had hand made amine characters, then you look at the booth next to it and wait you look closer at the table of stuff,  necklace of anime characters and they have "China" stamped on the side, they are cell charms only put on a necklace, I wouldn't call it art... but thats me 

Not to sound judgmental, but just un threading the cell loop and putting it on a chain, it would be different if it was in some way changed, like making it into a hair stick or a ring.

Really after seeing that I did not trust merch from AA vendors I wasn't already familiar with.  Like I would pay extra for some hair clips that supported an AA artist for the work put into it, but I wouldn't want to pay it only to see the same clips at the dollar tree later.

Also as I heard about lot of people saying they would have to specifically request a confirmation email after submitting an AA application. I would suggest making it part of the application process to send a confirmation e-mail (not just "per request") when some one sends in a AA application, it is just the nice thing to do in my opinion, it would prevent a lot of head/heart ache later

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