Smoky Hill River Fest Booth Shot

by ruralpearl | Jun 12, 2012 | Art Fairs & Art Travels

My best year at the Smoky Hill River Fest so far, despite the high winds and dust accumulation. The wind actually helped with the heat, but I heard another artist’s tent blew over and lots of things went crashing.. major bummer.. I’ve thought about upgrading to ProPanels — the gallery looking wall panels — but the grid that I use is nice and heavy and keeps things on the ground, so I’ll probably be sticking with it for awhile.

I’ve had a great start to my summer shows — much better than anticipated.. Which means, I now have an insane amount of work to get done over the next few weeks– before sun up to after sundown, today included, from now on. 4am, I’ll see you soon…

Smoky Hill River Fest Day 2

by ruralpearl | Jun 9, 2012 | Art Fairs & Art Travels

A good day despite this layer of dust that now covers me. And I forgot, once again, to take a photo of my booth.

I discovered one of the challenges of using a portable credit card processing mechanism (Square in my case, which has made my life as a traveling art seller much easier, most of the time): When there’s not good cell reception (AT&T — what gives? What happened to Anytime, Anywhere?) and little to no available public broadband access, it becomes near-impossible to process credit cards. I found myself walking laps, holding my cell phone (which is what I process cards from) in the sky, casting spells, begging and pleading, just to get a signal.. Although I did manage to process every card presented to me (at almost every show, 50 – 75% of sales are via credit card), it took up to 5 minutes to get the thing to go through. It kept “timing out” and I even managed to somehow delete two sales off the thing after it “timed out” while trying to process the signature after the people who purchased items had already left.. Oh well.. you live, you lose, you learn. I’m just not sure what I learned yet– I haven’t figured out a solution to process credit cards when there is inadequate network access.

Anyway, a word of caution to Square using vendors. One more day full day of the River Festival, and then I’ll be on my way back home.

Smoky Hill River Fest – Day 1

by ruralpearl | Jun 8, 2012 | Art Fairs & Art Travels

‘Twas a long, hot & sunny but enjoyable day. Thanks to everyone who came out to the festival. I started my day out at the newly established Starbucks/ truck stop.. There used to not be a Starbucks along I-70 between Topeka and Colby (opposite ends of the state), but alas, the corporate coffee giant rears it’s pricey head to please weary travelers with their usually predictable caffeine fix, myself included. I inhaled my triple shot, hung my work, and planted my director’s chair in the dirt. My booth neighbor is a potter from Southern California (whoa, long trip..) and we chatted all day about this and that: kayaks, surf shops, running, burritos, Mexico, dogs & cats, beer, art fair stories, blah blah blah. Always a major plus to have good neighbors at these things. Wind predicted for the next couple days- always a challenge with a canopy tent, but I shall deal ’cause that’s all you can really do. I forgot to take my usual booth shot, so perhaps a picture will accompany my next post. Til then..