93 – Getting Started with Art Festivals with Larry Pile

Laura

0:06
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

0:08
And this is Nikki May, with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:17
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:30
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours. Laura, who are we talking to today?

Laura

0:42
Well, Nikki, I first met today’s guest about 15 years ago when a friend invited me to take a fused glass class in his home studio and the crazy cool Kessler Park Conservation District in Dallas. After spending just a couple of hours with Larry Pile in his studio, I was immediately a fan. He is one of the most talented, generous, open hearted and creative artists that I’ve met. And he loves bold color, form and texture, and the art walls and glass panels throughout his entire home prove it. He loves exploring new techniques to take his art form to new levels, doing amazing things like weaving glass, and then he generously shares all of his knowledge from his experiments with others. You feel completely inspired after spending time with him, whether you are an absolute beginner or are attending one of his master workshops.

Nikki

1:34
Larry hosts amazing in person and online classes. He’s the founder of Lunch with a Glass Artist and Second Saturday Table Times virtual classes and has created an incredible kiln forming glass art community that spans the globe. But what we’re most interested in talking to Larry about today is his Startist story as a self-professed serial creative and his prolific experience with art festivals. Over the last 20 years, Larry has displayed and sold his artwork and well over 150 of them, and is here to share all of his hard-earned experience and advice with you.

Laura

2:08
Okay, we could go on and on gushing about Larry, but let’s hear from the man himself. Larry, welcome to the Startist Society.

Larry

2:17
Thank you, Laura and Nikki, for having me. I’m delighted to be here.

Nikki

2:20
We are thrilled to have you here. So, what we always like to start with is the Startist story, which is – how did you get started with your art? You know, you call yourself a serial creative? How did you get going?

Larry

2:36
I think I’ve been creative all my life, Nikki and Laura. I have been a painter, a singer-songwriter, I did large format black and white photography, I was a furniture maker, a silversmith. So there’s…

Nikki

2:46
So you’re a slacker?

Larry

2:49
I’m lazy, yeah. There’s very few times when I’ve not been making or creating something, whether it’s music or some kind of art. So glass has been my passion for 22 years. But, gosh, for 40 years before that, there were – 30 years, figure out my age, do the math. Just I’ve always had the drive to make something. Right now glass is it.

Nikki

3:15
So tell us a bit about what you did professionally before glass, and then how that moved into glass.

Larry

3:24
Yeah, when people meet me, they assume that I’m a full time artist, and I am a full time artist. But I’m also a full time professional until July 6 of 2022. I was a senior account executive for a large behavioral health insurance company. I’m trained as a clinical social worker, I have a master’s degree in social work, direct practice and administration of plans for major Fortune 100 customers. And that could be a 60 hour a week job as it were, but I value work-life balance enough that I devoted that much time to art as well. So I’m busy. I’m not lazy, by any means. But, doing that job allowed me to also be creative in its own way. So, that theme is my life.

Laura

4:11
So you mentioned all of these different hobbies that you had done, which really weren’t just hobbies because you at some point turned those into a business for yourself. So tell us how that progressed.

Larry

4:23
So I live in a 1926 Tudor home. And when I first started, I moved in the neighborhood in 2000, and I had this little dirt floor garage that’s probably original to the house and I was just starting to do stained glass and furniture making. A neighbor on Susie Moody, fairly well respected potter and her friend were taking a walk and they wandered up the driveways and said, “What are you doing?” And I showed them and they said well, why don’t you come and you know, we have a little group in Oakcliff that we do some art shows and do some art stuff and why don’t you come, maybe bring some pictures of what you do and meet with us. So I put some pictures on a CD-ROM and did that and in May of 2003. So 2003 was my first art show, we only could do it on Saturday, because we’re in a church, we had to give 10% of our sales to the church. And that was my first art show. I learned very quickly, my prices were too low, you got to have a better display and lots of things that I learned. But I became part of that group and later led the group and that was my first art show and my entrée into really selling my work.

Okay, so it was a church, little art show that happened. And at the time, what type of products were you selling?

I were doing a little bit of stained glass and a little bit of furniture. So I did both of those. I have since ceased anything but glass, it just doesn’t make sense to mix sawdust and kiln-formed glass. Having sawdust with 1500 degree kilns just doesn’t make any sense.

Nikki

6:04
No, that sounds like a bad combination. So when you did that first show, were you immediately hooked and was like, oh, yeah, I got to do this.

Larry

6:12
You know, I learned what I will tell you today, doing shows is a lot of work. It’s more than just the logistics. You’ve got to schlep your work, you’ve got to create enough work. You’ve got, you know, do your display and all that stuff. You’ve got to manage… it’s physically tiring, important to eat and drink and sleep, so you have some presence, but it’s also emotionally exhausting. I think of an artist – particularly a beginning artist that hasn’t developed thick skin like I have, you’re putting your heart on the table so anybody that walks by that table, but doesn’t stop and look and buy, they’re sort of rejecting you. There’s some cost to doing an art show, this is not for the faint of heart.

Nikki

6:54
Right. I’ve only done a handful of shows myself. I’ve done a couple of like holiday markets and I’ve only done two real you know, art festivals, outdoor weekend-long and it is hard work.

Larry

7:10
It is, it is, Nikki. I actually, after Laura and I talked to prepare for this I actually counted art shows. It’s been about 250.

Nikki

7:19
Oh wow. That’s amazing, while having a full time job.

Larry

7:24
And 200 Zoom meetings since the pandemic, so yeah, it’s kept me busy.

Nikki

7:30
Do you sleep?

Larry

7:32
I do sleep. I sleep very well, though.

Laura

7:38
That is so impressive. Okay, so the very first one that you did was way back when in – what did you say? 2003 or so?

Larry

7:46
2003, May of 2003.

Laura

7:48
I assume that this was more of like, hey, we have a table you can set up on the table. It wasn’t you know, much more involved than that.

Larry

7:55
Right, right. So I think that’s a lot of that’s a question a lot of people have is like if I’m gonna get started in art festivals do I have to go out and buy a tent and you know, walls and all these things to display my art. And shelves and, you know, all those supplies sound really expensive. So how do you get started in this and how do you develop what you need or decide what you need to go by?

Well, for me, Laura and Nikki, it’s been an organic process. So I started with, you know, simple tables, I built some really sort of cruddy wooden shelves that in retrospect, were just so bad.

Nikki

8:35
But still, I bet it helps that you have that furniture background so you could build some of this stuff yourself.

Larry

8:43
I had that skill. Yeah, yeah. Well, but I broke so many rules. It was cluttered. You could see through it to the booths behind me just, when somebody went in my booth, they were probably immediately either put off by the clutter or they saw everything behind me. And those are both obstacles to showing at an art festival. Do you have to start with a tent and panels? No, you don’t Laura. A lot of shows will rent their tents, is not an expensive – $100 to $300 for a weekend to rent a tent; they put it up for you just good. So you only have to populate that. I think having something that is clean and uncluttered and well-lit is critical. You go to any art festival, you’re gonna see that classic ProPanels, and a typical ProPanel setup without any of the shelves or print bands or lights or any of that stuff is about $1000 to $1,500 and you’re going to double or triple that by the time you do shelves and lights. But I didn’t start with that either. I’ve only had those for maybe the past five to seven years. Boy do they make a difference in your sales, in your presentation. You know, one of my important takeaways from shows is, you know, we spend a lot of time making stuff. Whether you’re a painter or a sculptor or glass artist you do stuff. You make pretty stuff, and you take pictures of that pretty stuff, and you focus on that pretty stuff. Well when you go to an outdoor art show your booth is another creation you’ve made. If you don’t treat it that way, if you treat it like, Oh, it’s just a table, I’m going to slap this beautiful jewelry or pottery or paintings on, you’re going to get bypassed, you’re not going to be successful. So the importance of the display is really important. Do you need to go out by $10,000 of display stuff? You do not. But I advise that you think carefully about that, as yet an extension or, or another piece of your art, your display, because that’s critical to selling.

Laura

10:39
Interesting. So if somebody is just getting started out, you know, maybe they can start out on a show that just requires the table indoors somewhere, type of thing. But then as you expand, you know, you mentioned you can rent one sometimes from people, but you had mentioned $300, which also feels quite expensive when you’re just starting out.

Nikki

10:59
But I would imagine, so I’ve only done you know, those two outdoor shows, and I wasn’t going to invest in buying a tent for that. So the first year I actually shared space with another artist who had a tent and then the other, the second year I did it I just borrowed a tent.

Larry

11:17
Can I can I speak to that for a minute.

Nikki

11:19
Of course you can.

Larry

11:20
I have I have a glass friend, that her first show, she shared a booth with me, we did a show that allowed sharing, and we set up a little pop up, it wasn’t a nice festival tent, but it was a little pop up, we used my panels and we split the booth down the middle, she sold $1,500 worth of stuff on her first show. And so doing that with an experienced person has some benefit, if you can find somebody that will do that. Now a lot of shows don’t allow sharing, right? Solor artists will be there.

Nikki

11:49
But if you have a friend you could borrow from, because my point, the point I’m trying to make is I did those two outdoor shows. And although it was fun, and I sold well, I realized this is not the life that I want. I don’t see myself doing it long term. So I’m glad that I didn’t invest in the equipment, you know, the tent and everything up front. So you know, try it out maybe before you do the investment or rent it before you do the investment because some people love it. Some people don’t.

Larry

12:18
This is not for everybody, for sure.

Nikki

12:20
Because I’m lazy.

Laura

12:23
And to find a show that allows you to share, you know, maybe on your first shows, you should be seeking that out when you’re looking.

Larry

12:31
There are lots of church shows, school shows, community event shows, private organizations, typically the big Zapplication location juried shows are not going to allow you to share.

Nikki

12:43
Let me insert a plug in here right now for for my local festival in Paducah, Kentucky, the Lower Town Art and Music Festival. That’s the one that I did it. It’s a fundraiser for the art center I’m on a board of and they do allow sharing. Well,

Laura

13:03
There you go.

Larry

13:04
There we go.

Nikki

13:05
Sponsored by the Lowertown Arts and Music Festival.

Laura

13:10
So we talked a little bit about the, you know, the idea of sharing and the cost of a booth. And you know, you might want to get some rudimentary things set up when you first display your work. But not every show you can just show up at right? So how did that work? You did your first show and you decided, hey, I want to try some more of these. Where they juried shows? Did you stick with a certain type of show for a while? And then how do people apply for those like and how do you find out about them?

Nikki

13:38
Yeah, how do you even find what shows you want to apply to?

Larry

13:42
I think once again, it’s an organic process. I started with a little show, maybe a person or two saw me, they put on another little show and eventually word gets out. You’re submitting applications and sending checks to various entities. I don’t know how I did my first juried art show, it was ArtFest in Dallas. Laura, you’ll be familiar with that it ran for probably 10 years before it stopped, the show stopped. That was my first juried… I didn’t realize the importance of the pictures and the importance of the booth shot. You know, we did the best we could and that’s if you’ll think about the high level art festivals, that’s not a very high level one, but gosh, for me it was. And by the time you start getting word out, I probably get five or six or seven invites a week to non-Zapplication shows. I’m also on lots of mailing lists – Art Fair Insider and DFW art and you know the Zapplication shows. So I think there’s lots of those that you’ll build up. The other thing I want to tell and I’d love that I’d love to tell a story because this is how I think about art about classes and about shows. So this guy wanted to start a little group right and you there’s gonna be a discussion group about some topic that doesn’t matter. So he invited a bunch of people and he made this big ole pan of lasagna, right? Well, the time came and went and nobody showed up. So instead of giving up, he set the next meeting and made another pan of lasagna, by the way, we know what he ate for weeks, right?

Nikki

15:21
I can think of worse things to be stuck with.

Larry

15:23
really. So he announced another and sure enough, the next time one person showed up, so they had a little bit of lasagna, and he ate lasagna for a week. But he continued doing, he persevered. And six months or nine months or a year later, he finally had a full group, it was a robust group, expectations were drawn. And so he considered it a success. I think that’s a lot about classes and art festivals. For art festivals, I think, you know, we look at a show and we’ll ask an artist, I’ll ask an artist, what shows do you think that are good? And at the beginning, people would say, Oh, this show’s good on that show. And I quickly learned you’ve gotta define, get them to define what is a good show.

Nikki

16:10
Oh, yeah.

Larry

16:11
So so how, how well did you do? She goes, I made my booth fee. I’m not here to make a booth fee. That’s a loss of my time and my work and my energy and stuff. That’s not a good show. So get them to define that as much as they can.

Nikki

16:25
But for your first one, it might be .

Larry

16:28
Yeah.

Nikki

16:28
It’s a start. It’s a start. You did lose money.

Larry

16:32
You did lose money. And then I think, I think of any show that I’m going to start at so I ask, get recommendations, talk to people who have done it, maybe I even walk it. If it’s a big expenditure, I may walk at the year before I do it.

Nikki

16:45
That’s a good idea.

Larry

16:46
And I want to do a show at least three times. I think of people you know, you’re there the first time in a show. And there’s people, if this is an established show, and that’s one of the secrets of picking good art shows, you want something that’s reasonably established. The first time show is a real risk. And I’ve done some of them and sometimes they’re worth it and sometimes not. But you the first time you’re in an established show, the patrons are surprised to see you. They may love your work, but are they there to buy Laura Griffin? No, because they don’t know about Laura Griffin. The second time if you’re there, the second year, they’re going to remember you, they’re going to be glad you’re there. And so that’s good. The third year, they’re going to expect you to be there and they’re going to anticipate you to be there, and they’re going to come… think about when you go shopping. I don’t know if you ever go shopping and just I’m gonna buy something, whatever comes up. I have something in mind and that’s true for art festivals, so if they’re looking for jewelry and your a jeweler, well she’s one of the seven or eight that I’m going to look at. And so there’s some there’s some adage that lasagna and in my in my house we call it, we got to make lasagna, so we got to give it a chance. got a

Nikki

17:55
Nice, I like that.

Larry

17:57
Think sort of in the long term. And so I think of a show and when I’m thinking about ceasing to do a show, I may give it three tries. I might try Okay, move my booth somewhere else or try a different promotional tactic. And then if it’s still sort of a dog, then Larry decides now is no longer for me. So that’s a little bit of how I got into shows. I think, Laura, also knowing what requirements a particular show has. Nikki talked about the Paducah show having the ability to share a booth, that’s great. But what are the jurors want? If you’ve ever sat in a jury process, it’s fascinating and several of the Zap shows, the Fort Worth Mainstreet, St. Louis allows a public jurying and they’ll do typically one or two or three levels of jurying and they allow the public to attend the first one.

Nikki

18:44
Oh, interesting.

Larry

18:45
So you’re sitting on this little amphitheater, you’ve got your, you’ve got the backs of four or five or six jurors and they’re sitting in their chairs, they’ve got their table and their pads and they’re rating… And they’ve got a screen, typically a large screen, and the moderator will project typically three or four pictures of your work, your booth shot, read your art statement in about 10 seconds and then they go on and that’s what you get. And so if you know that show and Laura you know the Fort Worth Main Street Art Festival, they want the artist to be narrow and deep and I will never get into that one because I do weaves, I do drop vessels, and I do a couple of other things. I’m not narrow and deep, I don’t meet their criteria. So why should I pay $50 to jury when I’m not going to get it. I still do but I never get in. Other shows are much much much more forgiving. I think most shows are forgiving. If you show two or three styles or two or three gross, you know saying same gross genre – painting or jewelry or glass, but you can do multiple styles, and they’re pretty forgiving. But think about that a juror has 10 seconds to give you yes or no. You better have great pictures have sometimes you know, we spent so much time making, you know, Laura’s making jewelry, she makes this jewelry and that jewelry. And that really takes great pictures, lovely background maybe pays a photographer to do that. And then she just dumps this crappy booth shot. That may make or break your jury experience. So you’ll want to think about that, in addition to the things you make.

Nikki

20:22
A lot of things to think about. So let me ask you specifically about that one that wants it narrow and deep. What if you showed them only photos of your weaving pieces? And you got in. Could you then sneak in some of the other pieces in the booth?

Larry

20:40
Depends on the show, but they’re really, really particular about sending people around and saying did the jury pictures match what they are showing? Now that show is unique. Most shows are not that not that strict. Not that particular. So again, and if you were to go to the Zapplication site for the Fort Worth Main Street Art Festival, it’ll say we want narrow, and deep. So they’re not deceiving anybody. They’re forthright about it. But you got to decide is that the show for me? And I think there’s many other things is your price point fair? I used to do little tiny, elementary school shows, and I hate those, by the way. But when I was starting out, they were good.

Nikki

21:25
You got to start somewhere.

Larry

21:26
Today, my my price point would not support that. You know, I don’t have anything in my booth under $100. And that’s sort of the maximum for an elementary school show, right PTA show, and many church shows. And so you’ve got to know the show. And that’s one of the benefits of talking to other artists or walking the show.

Nikki

21:48
Okay, so you’ve mentioned several times the word Zapplication. And I know what that is, because I’ve used it before. But I bet a lot of our listeners don’t know what that is. So tell us about that.

Larry

22:02
Sure. So Zapplication is a cool thing, that basically I go in to this Zapplication, of course I join and do all that stuff, doesn’t cost anything to join. But I fill out an application, I do an artist’s statement, I talk about my work. And, you know, maybe my price points, a little bit about me. And then they archive that. And so they, they must do 500 or more shows a year across the country. And so I when I see a show I want to jury for I say, click that, it opens up that application, my application goes in there. So I don’t have to fill out that, I do 10 to 15 shows a year and to fill out those applications and find the pictures, it’d be crazy. They have an archive of all your photographs that you’ve submitted, including your booth shot. You say I want to submit this one, this one, this one, that’s my booth shot and pay a fee and a jury fee can run any well these days, anywhere from probably a low of 25 or 30 to maybe a max of 50. You pay for that. And then they prepare the packet, if you please. They manage the jury process. And I believe Zapplication gets paid by the jury fees. And then the promoters get the top 100 or 200 or 300, whatever kind of show it is, and then they manage it from there. And then they send you this, Okay, Larry you’ve been accepted. And you pay your booth fee, and the direct communications from then on out come from the festival. So that’s a way to streamline the application process.

Nikki

23:35
Yeah, and I know from the from the other side, because I help run the festival in Paducah. Well, I don’t run it, but I do the design work for it. But from the festival side, they put their calls out on there. So they fill out all the details and requirements for their application. And then we’ll get Larry’s and whoever else’s and be able to use it to go through the jury process.

Laura

24:03
So it’s nice on both sides, and it sounds like then you don’t have to put together this whole package and application every time there’s just pieces of it, maybe you have to customize but then you already have your artist statement and your know your work, pictures of your work and all of that available in there. That’s pretty cool.

Larry

24:18
When you have you can have 30 or 40 pictures and two or three or four artists statement. Maybe I want to sound a little bit more philosophical and sometimes a little bit more concrete. Some applications will have 100 character limit for your artist statement. So you’ve got up some options you can pack but it’s so much easier than filling that all out from scratch. So

Nikki

24:39
right and maybe you have different bodies of work. So you know, for me, I might sell jewelry and prints. And I might only choose one of those to show a certain show. So makes it really easy.

Laura

24:54
So let’s say that you get accepted into a show and you’ve applied you get accepted Either it’s, you know, sort of a fancy juried show or, you know, it could be the local school, kind of what comes next in that process is you’ve got to get all your artwork together, you have to figure out how you transport it, how you’re gonna market it, you know, to get people to show up, like, what are some of your suggestions in your experience in that area?

Larry

25:19
Um, can I go backwards before we go forward?

Laura

25:21
Yeah, absolutely.

Nikki

25:22
You can go anywhere you want.

Larry

25:24
I think a lot of people say, How do I pick a good show, and I’m sure certainly talk to other artists, but I get lots of cold emails, you know, they’ve gotten my name from some other list is have they said, Hey, we’re doing the Mother’s Day festival here, where you come and so I, I always ask a few questions. I ask, you know, is this the first time or has it been an established show? If so, what was the audience count sales, if they tracked him, et cetera, et cetera? Usually, they don’t know that they don’t track that, which is sort of a strike against them. But I asked that. And then I asked, how will you promote it? So they say, Oh, we’re gonna send it out in the PTA newsletter. Pretty small audience I saw I saw Zapplication show recently that I was considering they said, the 50 artists we let in sold $20,000 worth of work. Well do the math, that’s $400 for artists, either they missed, I think is a typo. There’s no way they would have left out a zero, but they left out a zero.

Nikki

26:23
Hopefully for them.

Larry

26:24
But think about that. Even even 50 artists, that’s $4,000 a piece. That’s an okay, at the bottom end of okay show, it’s not a great show. Because think about it, I’m gonna have to travel I’m gonna have motel and traffic expenses, gasoline, I’m gonna have to pay for my meals. And then there’s the 4 to 5 to $600 booth fee, and then there’s just getting all the work ready. That’s the that’s the hardest part for us. reps are also the most joyous part. But you’ve got to have enough work that you have enough to sell. You know, people often joke to me, Oh, I, you know, I wish you the best of luck of that show. I hope you sell out. Well think about it. If I ever sold out of a show, I would be kicking myself all the way home because I didn’t bring enough work.

Nikki

27:12
You didn’t make enough work?

Larry

27:13
I didn’t I never want to sell out because that means I didn’t make enough.

Laura

27:17
Or it means you didn’t price your work right.

Larry

27:20
Correct. Correct. So I think, knowing how to evaluate show, so, how is it promoted? What is the attendance look like? Is it juried or not? Will they let anybody do they require handmade work, a lot of shows, you know, the school and community shows will allow the multi level marketing allow the Sensi and you know, all the stuff that has nothing to do with handmade work. As an artist, I can’t compete with Chinese boys working in a factory making cheap, whatever. And so I’ve got to pick a show that goes with my story, which means individually, high quality, handmade, hopefully one of a kind work instead of mass produced stuff. So you want to look at those when you’re picking a show.

Nikki

28:10
And then I imagine you also have a bunch of artists that you know from these shows that you can ask, Hey, did you do this show? How was it for you? What do I need to know?

Larry

28:19
Exactly. But get them to define, how do you define a good show because some people will say Oh, I made my booth fee. I don’t do shows to make a booth fee. I need to make my profit and my travel and my time and all that stuff. Or else I could stay in the studio and teach a class and make some money. It’s gotta be worth my while.

Laura

28:39
Well, I’m kind of curious because when people, you know get started, they may not have the funds to support you know, a bigger show or even have you know, enough work yet or. And so, one of the ways you can counter that is to have the right pricing. And you had mentioned in your first show you realized, oh my gosh, I underpriced everything. How how do you decide what to price?

Larry

29:03
It’s organic, like everything else. And I think what you’ll hear throughout my life, and I’m completely self taught, I don’t have any art education. I’ve never taken a class and any of the stuff I talked about, well, well, maybe one or two, but I’m not…

Nikki

29:16
Well, let me interrupt real quickly and say, I went to art school and I’m not self taught. I went to grad school. I didn’t learn any of that. You learn by doing and by talking to other people.

Larry

29:32
I think you try to look at materials and your time as much as you can gauge that. I make lots of stuff at once. They’re all they’re all one of a kind, but I make lots of stuff. So you try to gauge your time. But I think the perplexing thing about art is, I could do a painting. I’m not a painter, by the way, but I could do a painting. And if my last name ends with Van Gogh, it’s gonna get a lot more money than it is if it ends with Larry Pile. And so I think you’ve got the tangibles, the materials and the time. But then there’s all sorts of intangibles. What is your reputation? I think as as, as I grow, when I think about my first glass experience, I was selling little pieces for $19. Now my minimum price is $140. And that’s largely because I’ve gained a following. One of the things about an art show is we think, oh, the promoter is going to do a good job of bringing an audience and promoting this. And I hope that’s true. But you better take responsibility for promoting yourself, because if they don’t know you’re, expecting you to be there and understand your work, you’re going to be a surprise. And that’s not a good formula for selling, it’s certainly not a good formula for selling high end work.

Laura

Well, let’s talk a little bit about that, the promotion aspect. So how do you promote yourself, you know, you hope that the festival will provide some level of promotion. But as you’re mentioning, you have to promote your own work. How do you do that?

Larry

I do a couple things. I do, I’m pretty active on Facebook. I do Instagram. Laura, as you may know, I was a commercial photographer a long, long time ago, and so I’m pretty good photographer. And so I take pictures, I take in-process, I’m already thinking – and have been for at least three weeks – about Valentine’s Day. The number one gift-purchasing holiday we have, so you know, I’m thinking I already have a trunk show and, I’ve got Valentine-related classes, and I’m starting to promote this. I was signing a bunch of hearts yesterday that I’m gonna frame. Well, I had them taken pictures of me signing the work. I had pictures of us laying out after we had attached them to the mat boards. And so I think I think posting in process pictures. I also had a huge mailing list. There’s a phenomenon in art shows. It’s a question. I think a lot of people don’t think about it, but I do. Do you give out a business card or not? And I think you do not. And this is why. A business card is often a get out of booth free card. And so you hand the card to them, and they think, Oh, he thinks I’m going to follow up and buy some stuff later. Well, I know that’s not true. And so what I say instead, I said, Would you like to take a picture of my sign? Or would you like to sign up for my mailing list, and that gives me the control, if they sign up for the mailing list. They take a picture of the sign. Think about this. I was doing some photographs for a glass artist three weeks ago, he gave me his business card, which happened to have one of my photographs from five years ago. And I’m wondering, you think I could find that business card. But if I took a picture of his card with my iPhone, guess what, how many pictures do you have on your iPhone, Laura? Hundreds of thousands? So they’re not going to lose it. And it gives you a little bit of control. And you aren’t going to let them off the hook. Because I think if I don’t buy something, there’s something wrong. I know that’s not true, but they don’t. So why would I get them off the hook and half the cards I would give out are kids who’re just collecting cards with pretty pictures. It’s a business expense that just isn’t necessary. So…

Laura

That is so interesting.

Larry

Think hard about that.

Laura

33:18
Yeah, I never thought of it that way. But I think that’s such good advice. And also, I’m kind of curious, when you ask for people’s email address, doo you do that just on a physical piece of paper and a clipboard type thing? Or do you have a digital way to collect that?

Larry

33:33
I wish I had a digital way. But today I do it on a piece of paper. We do a lot of post-show work, in addition to the pre-show where and at the show work so right. So Laura, you’d asked once you get into the show, what next? And I don’t think I answered that. I think you’re around I’m creating for shows. I have a storage unit full of art that I have to have an inventory because people you know, oh, I’ve got a gift, I’ve gotta get something Larry, what do you have, I’ve got that, that level of need for that. And then I’ve got shows that I’ve got to get ready. And if I wait till the, you know, three weeks before or six weeks before the show, I’m gonna be humping it and I don’t want to do that. So I prep and prepare. I think the other thing that we haven’t talked about and I’ve listened to your podcast, a number of them and you guys really talk about being creative and being, doing high quality work and you know, how do you differentiate yourself from others and I think that’s part of it. If you’re at a show, and your work looks like every other glass artist or every other jeweler or other painter, you you don’t belong there, it’s not going to be good for you. So what is it about your work that’s different from everybody else? If you don’t have an answer for that you don’t belong doing art shows.

Nikki

34:55
Get back in the studio.

Larry

34:56
At least you don’t belong doing high end and a jury you you know that the jurors are jewelers and potters and painters. And so if you do something that is poorly executed, or that everybody and their brother are doing, it’s going to work against you. So how good is your work? How unique is your work? How well is it presented? And then I think you start thinking about how am I going to display that. For me, that’s uncluttered, well lit and well organized. If you walk into a booth, and it’s a bunch of tables, and there’s just pots or pieces of glass or paintings or jewelry just spread out on the table, it looks like a garage sale. What was it like last time you walked into a gallery that was impressive. It’s one on one level of paintings. They’re sparse, it’s clean, it’s well lit, and there’s not a lot of clutter. It doesn’t feel like a garage sale. And so I think, thinking about your display and planning for that. And then the logistics, the schlepping. I think if it’s your first show, set up the whole darn booth and the display in your driveway, because you’re going to want to have some experience doing that before showing up on a Friday afternoon where you’ve got three hours to set up. So you want to practice your setup. You’ve got a good setup, you’ve got good work. And then I think you better eat and drink, get a good night’s sleep, take care of your body. Because once you’re in that booth, you’ve got to be present. You can’t be reading your iPhone or reading a book or distracted, you can’t be absent. And so you want to be present. And if you believe in that energy, and I sure do, you want to give off good energy because people won’t stay in your booth if you’re giving anger or exhaustion or resentment vibes. And so you want to, you want to be prepared in that way. That’s one of the arguments for having a partner or a friend or a spouse that does the art show with you, because they can help with some of that, as Nikki said, and doing it by yourself is no game for the thin-skinned.

Nikki

37:02
I want to ask you a little bit more about being present with shoppers. So, I always I always observe people and wonder myself when I go in a booth, it’s like, some people will practically ignore you. Some people will like attack you with the hard sell. How do you handle that? How do you approach people who come in?

Larry

37:25
Sure. I greet everybody that comes in the booth or even stands in the aisle and looks at I’ll say Come on, and I don’t bite or something non threatening that come in, I’ll say hi. If they look at anything, and they invariably do, say if you’d like to know more about that, I’d be glad to talk to you but and then I back off and leave them alone. Now I’m an introvert, I’m not a people person normally, and so you know, that’s pretty easy for me. And I don’t want to pressure or hard sell, but I want to make make available information. And if there’s something about them that I can comment, maybe their outfit, maybe their hat, maybe the color of their clothing, something that I can relate to, then I might make a comment to make a personal connection. Also, if two people come in your booth, this is really important. Nobody knows this, okay, there’s one person that’s interested, there’s one person that’s less interested, right? You’ve seen it 1000 times, if you don’t engage with the person that’s not interested, you’re they’re gonna leave and their friends gonna go with them to engage that person that’s less interested. So you keep them in the booth so they can look at your work, because that’s what you’re there for, to show them the work. They may not buy today, they might buy in a year or two years or three years, but you’re there to plant a seed.

Nikki

38:40
That’s great advice. And I think, I like the way you handle it. It’s a balance. It’s not totally hands off, but it’s not overbearing either.

Larry

38:47
Yeah. I have a bio with lots of humor in it. I also believe that you should have prices on everything. Do not ever make a customer ask you how much it is. I have a story about the cottonwood art festival as a patron. There’s a sculptor, a bronze sculptor is doing this lovely little lost wax bronze, and they were so cute, I really wanted one. Nothing had prices. Do you think I asked him? I walked on.

Nikki

39:14
Nope. People aren’t going to do that. Yeah, I mean, and you’re an artist who knows about things, most of the general public would be too intimidated. Alright, so let’s talk more about what life’s like at the show itself. Things like weather. How does that affect, you know, I know that one time it was so windy everything blew on the ground and everybody had to pick everything up.

Laura

39:44
Yeah, and if you’re a glass artist, how the heck do you do wind?

Larry

39:47
And I’m a glass artist, amen, Laura.

Nikki

39:49
My stuff was a mess, but nothing got broken. So what do you do if the weather’s bad?

Larry

39:55
I have so many stories I want to tell you. So Laura, you know Texas weather right? We don’t get much cold weather. Arboretum, probably eight years ago, the Dallas Arboretum is a major fixture in Dallas. They have a great, great, great art show. It’s probably my favorite of all time. But every year, I just got my acceptance for 2023, so come see me. Anyway, they accepted me, we set up Friday night, it was torrential rain. Thankfully the rain started after I’d set up and I had a festival tent, which is a heavy duty. It’s a $2,000 tent, but it’s really heavy duty, a spacious, it’s lovely, it’s really strong. And so they aborted Friday night and Saturday, we got up and this is in April of whatever it was 2013, 2012, whatever it was, Laura. We show up and there’s eight inches of snow on the ground. In April, in Dallas, Texas. There was so much snow on the roof of my tent that the poles actually bent and ruined the four poles of my tent, so that that’s the extreme. I love.. on my website, if you’ll see about shows, you’ll find a picture of that snow covered and of course everybody’s booth, they canceled the whole show. And of course you don’t get your money back when they cancel a show. But inclement weather is huge, so you have to prepare for that. Lots of shows, will emphasize over and over and over the need to weigh your cat down. You definitely want to think about any jiggling. You want secure ways to attach your paintings to walls. And there’s lots of systems that do that. I typically weigh my, each leg with about 80 pounds of weight down. So you definitely want to think about safety.

Nikki

41:40
What about your particular work setup in your booth? It’s all perfect. And all of a sudden, here comes a big wind. What? How are your things secured? I mean, yours, yours are very breakable. I imagine some hang on the wall, some sit on a shelf or a table. How do you protect those? How do you secure them?

Larry

42:02
I think you’ll be surprised, my tent weighs a lot. I’ve gotten 80, 160, 320 pounds on four legs, my ProPanels tie into the tent, so they’re all one structure. I typically double hang all of the pieces that are hung and most of my work is framed. Fairly large format work, and so I’ll double hang that. And when there’s a high wind, if I’ve done my job, right, you’re not going to see much movement. You’re going to be surprised, the little drop vessel vases, there’s no way to attach those are on pedestals. So I use museum gel, if you know about that it’s a little stuff, you buy it on Amazon for your your average lifetime supply will be that $10, I use that about every two years but a little pea that under the drop vessel and you pick it up and the pedestal or the little piece of glass it’s sitting on comes with it. So it really is impervious to wind. Okay, I don’t get any wind damage, it’s just rare. And all my work because you’re putting it in a matte black lacquer frame that’s really susceptible to cracking and chipping and scratching. Every one of my pieces goes to the show in a foam box. So it’s protected and the customer who’s about to spend, you know, they’re gonna spend $1,200 on a piece, they wonder how am I gonna get this darn thing home? Well, if you’ve got this protected six side foam box to give them with a work, you’ve removed one of the biggest obstacles to buying an expensive piece of art. So you want to protect your work.

Laura

43:36
Okay, so I have another question. What happens if somebody comes in your booth, turns around their backpack and knock something off the wall? Have you ever had that happen?

Larry

43:46
Laura, if that happens, it’s my fault; it’s not their fault. It’s rarely their fault. I’ve had two pieces broken in the last 15 years. Both were dogs, both were work on pedestals on that a dog got alarmed and knocked something off a pedestal. And so I feel like that’s my responsibility, to keep things safely.

Nikki

44:05
That’s part of the cost of doing businesses, you’re gonna have a little bit of loss, right?

Larry

44:10
Yeah. Now somebody did something on purpose, that’s perhaps a different story, but I’ve never had that happen. Knock on wood.

Laura

44:17
So okay, another question you’d mentioned sometimes having somebody with you there because what happens when you have to go to the bathroom?

Larry

44:24
Most of the shows have booth sitters and they’ll either have a cellphone or you’ll have a little orange tag or you try to capture a volunteer but those folks are going around, at the really good shows are bringing around bottles of water, they’re bringing fruit, they’re bringing, you know crackers and snacks.

Nikki

44:40
Do they bring you bourbon?

Larry

44:41
But never bourbon. Never bourbon, but you know if I come to Paducah, I’ll bring some bourbon.

Nikki

44:48
If I hosted a show…

Larry

44:49
There you go, there you go. Just work it into the show fee. And those people are also more than willing, typically they offer, Can I watch your booth while you go to the bathroom? So that’s the way to do it. The other thing is other artists around we know the score you know when I have to pee after pee right? I don’t wait 20 minutes for them to come by. So I’ll have somebody watch…

Nikki

45:11
Yeah, whoever is next to you, just keep an eye on my you know…

Larry

45:13
You’re gonna do the same thing, aren’t ya? So we’re community, we’re a community.

Nikki

45:18
And speaking of keeping an eye on stuff. What do you do if it’s a multi-day show overnight, you leave everything set up, do you pack things up?

Larry

45:28
I leave everything set up. When I was a silversmith, I would take the valuable precious metal stuff, which is pretty easy to break down.

Nikki

45:35
The stuff that’s easy to for someone to walk away with.

Larry

45:37
Well think about the ROI, it’s easy to get, and it’s got high values. That’s the stuff they’re gonna go for. I’ve never had anything damaged. Most decent shows have security. I’m not convinced that’s very good security, but they have a security guard or two walking around, they’re often fenced off. Now if it’s high inclement weather, Nikki and Laura, I will take the big hanging pieces down, put them in foam boxes, the little drop vessels or something that’s really fragile for impact. I may take it up and put it on the shelf, but I’m not going to pack it away. In a typical booth I might have 40 pieces out and, you know, as it as I’m gonna spend an hour setting up on the Sunday morning. I don’t want to do two hours or three hours. That’s just too much so I don’t take my work down. Other people do. But I have been lucky or skillful at making my work protected. But I don’t I don’t take it out.

Laura

46:31
And do you bring your own lunch with you? How do you deal with like the food situation?

Larry

46:35
Great. I think it’s wise to bring yourself a little cooler with snacks, because this is lots of energy. Doing lunch in an eight hour show is not enough food. So I bring plenty of water. Because the other thing is, what’s the health factor of festival food? It’s not pretty. And it’s going to be expensive. So if you can bring, you know, hummus and carrots and crackers and cheese and little stuff to snack on throughout the show, you’re money ahead. And that’s not just about money. It’s about health and keeping an energy level up. A lot of shows will include a free lunch on Saturday. And that’s included in the show fee you fill out a little form do I want vegetarian or you know, chicken or roast beef and they bring you a meal with lunch. But those are I’d say only 50% of the shows do that. Other shows we’ll have restaurants that come by and say we have a food truck over here. Do you want us to bring you tacos or whatever the offerings are in your booth and you can pay that. But again, what’s the health factor and the expense?

Nikki

47:42
Yeah, I know that, I don’t know if this is a normal thing, but our festival in Paducah, we always have a hospitality room set up somewhere and it’s either in somebody’s in somebody’s studio because it’s in an arts district or somebody’s business, and it will have breakfast and snacks throughout the day. And obviously it’s a mix of healthy and unhealthy snacks, but that’s always a nice thing.

Larry

48:09
Yeah, most shows including the Paducah, Kentucky show, do have some kind of hospitality booth. But as Laura has intimated, how do you get there? You got to have some coverage, somebody’s gonna have to watch your booth while you go do that. And I’m really there to sell and connect with other artists and other patrons. And that’s that’s sort of exciting for me, even though I’m and introvert. I love that part of it. So, seeing people’s reactions to new work or letting them feel a lovely sandblasted soft glass piece or ask the question, how do you weave glass? Is that possible? Do you do it while it’s hot? All these questions they ask, that gives me a thrill. Part of my mission in life is to share about that and it’s why I love to teach and I think it’s why I like to do shows.

Laura

48:59
So let’s talk a little bit about the money aspect of shows. How do you take payments when you’re at a show?

Larry

49:05
I do Square. Used to be with get 50/50 cash versus credit card and back in the day, we had a manual, you know you’d collect a credit card information on a piece of paper, go back to your hotel room, plug the credit card reader that you’re spending $30 a month to have plug it in run the numbers.

Nikki

49:26
Or those big slidey things that you put it in, did you ever do those?

Larry

49:30
A knuckle buster? Yeah, you have a knuckle buster.

Nikki

49:33
I’m so glad those are gone.

Larry

49:34
I am too. So as long as you have an adequate internet connection, and that can be a problem, you can run Square and you don’t pay a premium for manually running it. So I like the Square with a little card reader.

Laura

49:49
Or chip reader you insert the card into.

Larry

49:51
Right, so yeah, so I use Square.

Nikki

49:54
It plugs into your phone, oor some of them are I guess they have Bluetooth ones now.

Larry

49:59
Right? But if you’re in a rural area, that’s a challenge. I’ve been at shows where I had to write down the credit card number, which sort of makes your customer a little nervous and understandably so. But if you don’t have any internet connection, you don’t have any choice.

Nikki

50:14
Doesn’t Square have an offline version now, like up to a certain dollar amount, that you can take it offline.

Larry

50:22
If they do, I’m not aware.

Laura

50:23
I think you can plug it in later and it’s got a higher fee to it or something. So, okay, so if you’re, especially if you’re somebody who wants to travel and do these art festivals in different states and different cities, how do you deal with sales tax? Do you have to collect the sales tax? How do you know what to collect? How do you remit it? Is that something that you have to worry about in festivals?

Larry

50:45
It is, and you have to have a permit for every state, Laura. Think about it, when I go to New Mexico, I better be registered with the Department of Revenue or whatever it is for New Mexico. So if you do shows in 10 states, you have to have sales tax permits for 10 states. So yes, you do. Knowing the local tax rate is the easy part. You know, in Texas, and changes from community to community. Edom, Texas is different from Dallas, which is maybe different from Houston, I don’t know, but you definitely want to do that. I have been to shows that wouldn’t let you set up until you show your resale tax permit. So they’re serious about it. I had a show in Dallas that the revenue officer for the Texas Comptroller showed up at every booth and said, What’s your name? What’s your information? Making sure you have a resale tax information. You don’t want to short them on that.

Laura

51:38
Yeah, I know in Oklahoma, where I live now, they actually have the ability in Oklahoma to do just an event, basically a one time event tax where you submit the tax for that one time, so you don’t necessarily have to have the full on permit. But it is interesting, because I’m curious, are there ever any shows where they remit on your behalf?

Larry

52:00
Not that I’ve ever done one, no.

Laura

52:02
Okay. Good to know.

Larry

52:03
And I really don’t want them to do that, because I don’t want the managing my money. It’s none of their business how much money I make. Let me do that.

Nikki

52:10
That might happen at like an an event more than an art festival, like the Affordable Art Show that I just put on for the art center in Paducah, did it that way. They collected the payments, so they pay the taxes and then give the artists their commission.

Larry

52:29
That’s fair enough. I wouldn’t be terribly opposed to somebody doing that, because it certainly is a less hassle. But it also feels a little invasive to me.

Laura

52:38
Okay, I have another question for you. We have so many great questions. And I know we’re gonna have to we’re going to have to wind this down in a little bit. But Larry, how do you get the best spot at an art market? Because when I go to an art festival, and I’ve been sometimes where I’ve been trying to find someone and I couldn’t find them and come to find out oh, yeah, we were there, we were just in the back corner. So when you’re getting started with art festivals, how how does it work? How do you get assigned a spot? Or do you pay for a spot? Or can you choose a spot? How does that work?

Larry

53:09
Well, when you talk about paying for a spot, the only options you really have is booth size, you can do a single or double booth which is 10 by 10 or 10 by 20. In most shows, not the little shows.

Nikki

53:20
And what do you usually do?

Larry

53:22
I usually do a 10 by 10; I’ve done a 10 by 20 a couple times. And the other thing, if you have enough display and enough work, go planning for somebody not to show up. If somebody next to you doesn’t show up, you just got a free 10 by 20 booth or a 10 by 15, because your next door neighbor is going to do the same thing. So go prepared to be or at least to put your work on your outside walls, people you get more real estate, so I think those and then an end-cap booth and I chose an end cap booth for a show I just got accepted in and it’s $50 more so instead of $450 it’s $500 or whatever it is.

Nikki

54:03
Probably worth it.

Larry

54:04
So that gives you some choice. The other thing is some shows, I think particularly my favorite shows will ask you do you have a preference where you are? If you’ve walked that and have a sense of what sort of a place you want. I hate to say good, because good is relative but if there’s a place you want, give them that as your first choice.

Nikki

54:29
Be near the beer tent.

Larry

54:32
Maybe, maybe.

Nikki

54:34
Everybody walks by.

Larry

54:35
Yeah but they’re there with their sole purpose of buying beer. I want people that are there to buy art, that’s why I won’t do wine festivals interestingly enough Nikki because they’re there…

Nikki

54:46
Yeah, but don’t drunk people spend more?

Larry

54:48
They do but, they’re not there coming prepared to schlep home art. They’re there to get wine or listen to music. And so I just I want a festival devoted to art.

Nikki

54:59
That make sense.

Larry

55:01
So I think Laura, if you know where you want to be, and they give you that option, do that. If they have a comment section, you could say put me in x area. I also think and, and maybe this isn’t a big deal, but it maybe fits with my personality. I am a super nice guy with festival directors. If you’ll think about that, and Nikki, you’ve been on that end. You’ve got 100 or 300 artists, you’ve got food vendors and all sorts of distractions. If you’re a jerk of an artist, you didn’t get the spot you wanted or you know, there’s two inches of less space, whatever. If I make a big deal about that, there’s other artists that want that spot and they don’t want to do it. And so be nice, be courteous, be professional. Show up when you say you’re going to, follow the rules. There was… the last festival I did in 2022 at Reverchon Park, Laura, you know that area in Dallas, pretty nice tony area. I showed up, and really nice to the festival director, I made some comments, I agreed to do some of the promo that got published in terms of publicizing the show which helps him, but it helps me too, because guess who comes looking for me, because they heard me and you’re a glass artist, I’m gonna go looking for you. So if you are ever offered an opportunity to do TV spots, or radio or newspaper or even talk to the local school, I did that for Cottonwood Art Festival and I probably got five sales out of the parents of those art students. So use those as opportunities not only to promote the show, but promote yourself. But I had done that I was courteous. I was professional showed up and he gave me a great spot. He was gonna put me in this sort of cruddy area. And he says, no, I’m going to change my mind, I’m going to have you there. It was right at this perfect corner where everybody would go by and I have to think that it either was good karma or I was just a nice guy and he had a space that was open and he let that happen. So, but most places, you can’t say I want this spot. It’s just not part the game.

Nikki

57:16
Okay, so Larry, we want to talk a little bit about the bad word, the pandemic.

Larry

57:23
No, it’s a good word, it’s a great word.

Nikki

57:28
Tell us why it’s a great word. How did it change art festivals? How did it change your business? You know, what did you do when festivals shut down?

Larry

57:41
The short answer, before the pandemic I didn’t have nine microphones and two video cameras. It’s the truth, I kid you not. I kid you not. I didn’t know how to edit video, I didn’t know how to edit sound. So when the pandemic hit, every art show that I’m aware of large and small, just canceled, done, it was over. If you already juried and paid, they say, yeah, next year, we’ll give you a booth and sometimes that happened sometimes that didn’t. They completely eliminated any face to face classes, it just killed the whole thing and you’ll you guys will laugh at me, but you know, here we’ve lost sort of collaboration opportunities, learning opportunities and showing opportunities and personally, I think you know, from an artist, that’s scary. So I started this little group, Lunch with a Glass Artist/Larry Pile. And it was so egotistical to say that, but it wasn’t that way intentionally. I thought it would be a couple of months we would do this and then we’d get back on with normal, and yet here we are.

Nikki

58:41
Normal, he says.

Larry

58:43
So we started, it was just an open forum for an hour, people could do the Zoom. We were limited to 100 people, but we quickly got to 100 people. People going from Canada and all over the US and New Zealand and Croatia and just all over the world. Just to talk about staff. And again, that organic word Laura. We just said, what if we did a little didactic… I’m getting volunteers to talk about something, how to put on a good art show, right, for 30 minutes and they do that and then we have show and tell and Sherlocking. One of our members named the sort of questions and answers about technical stuff Sherlocking. And so we did that and we’ve been doing it, it’ll be three years in March. As of last Saturday, we done 141 Zoom one hour Zoom things. And I used to do brick and mortar classes in my studio and of course that completely eliminated, so once a month I do what’s I called Second Saturday Table Time. It’s not always on the second Saturday, which just confuses my audience, but you got to keep the branding up. And in-depth didactic topic that I do completely on Zoom. So I’ll have a PowerPoint deck, I record those and if you pay the low fee for the class, you get the recording, but people buy those, I sell those every week recording about my class topics.

Laura

1:00:08
So give me a couple of examples of of topics that you’ve covered.

Larry

1:00:12
Um, my three most popular, one is on screen printing. So screen printing with glass powder and glass enamals. So highly technical, highly focused, and not everybody does it. So it’s a two hour Zoom.

Nikki

1:00:24
Ooh, I want to do that.

Larry

1:00:26
I do one called Creating with a vitrigraph kiln, which is a specialized kiln. I won’t go into that, but there’s this big secret. And there’s lots of secrets in the art world. I think we live in a world of scarcity. We got to talk about that sometime, Laura. Yeah, but I think people are reticent to share. So there’s been this big secret, and so in my December, table time was about that. I said, you know, darn it, I’m going to quit holding that secret. And so I gave formulas and examples and showed the process for doing this what I call highly secretive process. I’m just not going to do that anymore. So that’s another one. In the glass world we struggle with displaying things without clutter. And so I have two display your glass things about framing and matting and shadow boxing and mounting on metal and making your own stand, just a whole plethora of ways.

Laura

1:01:16
Yeah, cuz you you’ve even designed those, I think for your vitrium sculptures, right? You’ve designed the stand that they sit in, which is beautiful.

Larry

1:01:24
I have them designed and have them a made. Yeah, yeah.

Nikki

1:01:27
And I think, you also sell those, don’t you? I thought I saw them on your website.

Larry

1:01:31
I do, they’re expensive, but they’re lovely. They’re lovely. But I make no apologies if you want quality and uniquity. Who wants to really go to China and buy a $20 stand when you can have something custom made ing the powder coat color of your choice, it doesn’t make any sense. Because my theme is uniquity and high quality. Just if it doesn’t have that I’m not interested. So Laura, did I answer your question about the pandemic? So the pandemic, all shows stopped as of, probably after April of 2020, there were no more shows until maybe spring of 2021. Even those were few and far between. And what happened, we saw, or I saw a number of folks, maybe it’s 2022 before they really got going. But there was a situation that I will explain. I don’t have any facts for this, but I think that people stayed at home, they didn’t eat out, they didn’t go on vacation. So they had money to burn. And so the first few art festivals I did, where people were there to be seen and buy stuff, sales were really, really, really good. That’s gone down a little, but I think it changed our priorities.

Nikki

1:02:46
They’d been in their empty houses staring at their empty walls for two years,

Larry

1:02:50
Or the same old stuff, which is the same thing, right? So I think from my perspective, Laura, I don’t think I’ll ever go back. I’ll start certainly, I’m starting to do more face to face classes and all that stuff. But LWAGA and the Second Saturday Table Time, I get asked every Saturday, are we going to continue this or at some point, the pandemic is over, or so we thought will we nix this. This group actually, it’s a completely unpaid group, right? They fund the $700 subscription that allows us to exceed 100 participants. So that’s how invested these people are to keeping this thing going. And because these people are rural areas, or foreign countries where they don’t have resources, we are a resource. So it’s super exciting, and it’s accidental, I would disassociate my name with it if I could, because that seems egotistical. But I thought it was there for three months when I established it. So anyway.

Nikki

1:03:46
So how are you getting, how are you marketing these classes and Zoom events that you’re doing?

Larry

1:03:52
So all I do for the LWAGA, the Lunch with a Glass Artist, as I announced on on five or six Facebook pages, hey, we’re gonna do, we’re gonna meet again on Saturday from noon to one central standard time and the topic is, last week, it was making lanterns, the little IKEA lanterns and making panels for them. So I announced the topic and I say the time and I put the Zoom link and then have a password because if you click that, it just takes you right into the Zoom. And I do that I have a mailing list of people who have asked to be on the mailing list. I send that out on Friday. So Friday afternoon, I’ll post five Facebook posts and a single email to people who have asked and the rest is up to them. And we have everything from 45 to 125 people each time so.

Nikki

1:04:43
But when you first started this, when the festivals shut down and it was new and nobody knew what it was, what did you do to get the word out? Anything different or just share it with your email list and post it on Facebook?

Larry

1:04:55
Same thing.

Laura

1:04:56
Well and once anybody attends one of these things are going to want to turn them all because, Larry, you’re awesome.

Larry

1:05:00
Well, thank you. And we release the, we record and put the all the Zoom recordings up on the… I use Vimeo as my platform. They’re all they’re all free and people can download them or watch them. And there’s now about 130 of those. Nice now, you could go and get literally get 130 hours of free glass instruction by that. So they’re great.

Laura

1:05:24
So we would love to link to where our listeners can get access to those. So where can our listeners connect with you online?

Larry

1:05:32
They can email me larry@larrypileglass. My website is larrypileglass.com. I have a Facebook page and Instagram page all with the same same moniker.

Nikki

1:05:44
Larrypileglass on all of them?

Larry

1:05:46
You know, I think my Facebook page is just Larry Pile, I need to look at that and reevaluate. But I did a huge name change a year ago, Nikki and I’m still, I’m still covering little, little places, yeah.

Nikki

1:05:59
Oh, I understand; I think we’ve all done that. Yeah.

Laura

1:06:02
Well, Larry, we just want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and just sharing all of your knowledge so generously. And we know that people will get so much out of this, especially people who are interested in getting started with art festivals.

Larry

1:06:16
It’s been a pleasure, Laura, Nikki, thank you.

Nikki

1:06:19
Yeah, thank you so much for being here with us. To learn more about Larry and read today’s show notes go to startistsociety.com/larrypileglass and Pile is p i l e.

Laura

1:06:34
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, we’d love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing helps us reach more Startists like you and keeps us inspired to create new episodes.

Nikki

1:06:43
Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.