A Festival Layout Plan How To Balance Requests and Mediums
The Talbot Street Art Fair takes place on a narrow city street in a historic neighborhood. So, the booths are 6 feet on the road and 4 feet on the easement across from each other.
Booths are 12 feet wide by 10 feet deep, allowing ample room between booths. There are larger spaces available, from 13 x 10 to 20 x 10, and those spaces are purchased through ZAPP on an announced date, so everyone who wants extra space has a chance to buy it.
We must work around trees, signs, fire hydrants, etc. that are in the easement area to ensure full use of the artists’ spaces. Each year, we must research and remeasure because of changes in the neighborhood and growth of the trees. We have 225 to 240 artists participating in the festival, depending on how many requests there are for extra footage.
Artist Requests
Artists are allowed to request a specific booth for the Talbot Street Art Fair. Priority is given to those who participated the previous year to return to their space.
We have several artists who travel with a partner or spouse and exhibit separately. We honor their request to be side by side. Otherwise, requests are honored on a first-come, first-given basis.
The art festival has premium corner spaces that are on intersections. These spaces provide a wide-open view of an artist’s work.
The premium corner spaces are announced on ZAPP, to be released on a specific date. Again, requests for those spaces are on a first-come, first-given basis.
That is also the case with the double booths released on ZAPP at the same time. Artists may use their spaces however they think it is best for them — as long as they do not infringe on their fellow artists.
Balancing Mediums
We use Google Sheets and code each artist’s medium, so it is easy to make sure we do not place two artists of the same mediums together. We also try not to have two competing artists across the street from each other.
Our art fair goes from 16th to 20th streets on Talbott Street. We have a food court at 17th Street — in a parking lot behind the artists’ booths.
The children’s area is located behind the food booths, so it does not interfere with the artists. North of 20th Street, we have a beer garden, with food, entertainment, and music. It is again placed away from the artists, so it does not interfere with their sales. We believe that having two food areas draws attendees to both ends of the art fair.
Layout Changes
In 2018, we eliminated all side streets and moved all artists onto Talbott Street. The festival’s committee did not think it was financially equitable for some artists to be placed off Talbott Street since the traffic flow there was much less.
Doing this limited our booth spaces from 250 to 225 to 240 — depending on artists’ requests for extra space. Having food options and activities at both ends of the fair encourages attendees to walk the entire event.
This year, we encouraged participating artists to send any suggestions or complaints to our committee, so we can evaluate our operations and discuss how to improve things. Our committee is predominately made up of working or retired artists and art educators, so we know how artists want to be treated at a show and what we want at our event to make it successful for the artists. We work very hard year-round to create a very positive and successful event for all our artists and attendees.