Rambles in the first week of September

Like promised, here's a "mini" update that's less so an update proper but more so me talking about things. I actually cannot believe it's September? And I thought I had more August to burn through???

Anyways, I think I'll use a ramble tag or something to separate it out but I wanted to just talk about artist alleys.

This is coming off of trying to wade my way through an ocean of people at Toronto FanExpo (IYKYK) and from tabling at a variety of events since 2018. I have a lot of thoughts about a number of things but first...

Let's talk about artist alleys

I remember my first artist alley I went to was a local one in high school and I was buying little laminated keychains of people's hand drawn characters. They were all printed at home, school or the library, laminated with something from the local dollar store and then it was hole punched. They were very cool and, at the time, we all used split key rings or cut and tied our own strings because no one had access to these fancy shaped clasps that now come in every colour in the rainbow.

Now it's really hard to break into any sort of artist alley without an insane downpayment on booth supplies. I'm talking displays, branding, signs — and that's excluding the cost of making merchandise (which is a whole separate conversation) and the ever growing cost of tabling at shows. What used to be an investment of maybe a couple of grids to hold up any flat items for about $30 to $50 back in the early to mid-2010s is now closer to probably $5001 in 2026.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that my booth is very branded and I do have a pastel theme going on, I hate that all of us have to have this weird sort of branded/semi commercial look to even be considered purchasable from in the artist alley. Artist alleys were meant for smaller creators to be able to showcase their skill and their artwork but now it's so much of a business venture that everyone is just sort of throwing money at it and hoping that if they put in enough it gets them out of the red.

Which, if I'm being honest, more so works on a business set up of "you will not see your investments back for at least five years" if you include all your expenses, ranging from materials to time spent actually working on pieces to everything else, if you're 99% of artists. If you're the other 1%, then you're one of the lucky popular ones that's able to make it back into the black within your first few years, but that's definitely not the norm. While I don't want to disparage their hard work and effort that art and running a small business takes, a lot of being profitable in an oversaturated market is partially luck.

Now this isn't to say that all of artist alleys are big doom and gloom of being terribly expensive!

There are a lot more grassroots ones popping up that celebrate the homemade visual arts, typically as zine2 festivals or shows. These ones I always find are interesting because it has a variety of artwork and not just all artwork that's more general audience and commercial friendly like mine and other artwork is. "Start up costs" for these shows, typically being geared for local artists, are also lower — plus the fun addition of these being less "on brand" and more so "throw art on table and start a conversation."

Additionally, for better or for worse, a lot of artists are also trying to start up their own shows either to provide shows where there normally aren't any hosted (either the time of year or location) or to service a very specific type of niche market. Sometimes, there will even both!

When a multitude of events collide

Now you may be thinking that a lot more events are good. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to have a good amount of choice for shows. However, when multiple events fall on the same weekend that attract the same types of audience you start to run into a small snag.

For example, Animethon and Otakuthon are both anime conventions, as the names imply, and they're both held on the same weekend. But since they're two events in two separate provinces, chances are that if you're in BC or the prairies, you're heading to Animethon and the east coast folks would likely head to Otakuthon. Clashing for these two events isn't that terrible3.

Theis problem becomes a lot worse when you have a ton of similar events all being held around the same time in the same city... Which is a problem that I'm well acquainted with in Toronto.

I feel like every single weekend there are at least four shows happening, most of which I'll hear about on the day of the event with no prior marketing. Others I won't hear a peep about until well after the event passes. Or if they're two bigger events, like Toronto Comicon and Furnal Equinox, you'll never be able to be at the other show as a vendor4 or if you wanted to spend money at both shows, you'll most likely be out of budget by the time you hit the other show.

After all, there's only so many artists that you can spend your money on, as sad as that makes me: an impulse buyer of art.

On the the number of artists at an artist alley

A little off tangent but I've noticed an ever increasing number of artists being shoved into small areas with tiny aisles for attendees to walk through that, knock on wood, should ever have a serious emergency, would definitely be a disaster trying to escape from.

I think at Toronto FanExpo there were maybe between 200 to 300 tables across both the North and South Buildings that I would consider to be manned by small businesses, including artists. Of these tables, I'd say about half were splitting tables, so we can actually bump up the number of artists to closer to 400 to 600.

Now let's talk attendees. Let's say that there were anywhere between 25k to 40k per day across the entire show. If you divide it up, that's about 63-100 table visits per attendee at 400 artists and 42-67 at 600 artists per day. This would exclude any return purchasers from other days of the show (because this does happen between days sometimes) or people who circle back after doing their rounds through the artist alley. Then about only a third to half of people who visit tables actually have intention to buy.

Of course, this is all under the assumption that people could even stop at your table. At busy or shows with notoriously small aisles, it can be very hard to do this and, quite frankly, means that you hadlve to circle the aisle to get to a specific table if you wanted something from it.

So while more artists are fantastic and more foot traffic is generally good, if people do not have the space, I do not think either should be expanded drastically. Events should be capping their ticket sales at venue capacity and should adjust their artist alleys to reflect that, not simply sign on more artists for the purpose of filling out the entire floor plan.

In fact, I would welcome larger aisles for both people flow and so that people can actually stop at a table and not have to worry about blocking oncoming traffic.

Some unsolicited artist alley tips

Anyways, this really was a ramble because I wasn't going anywhere specific with this train of thought but to end off this little newsletter(?), if you're planning to become an artist alley artist or you were thinking of doing it in the future, here are a couple of tips to sort of guide you:

Before applying to a show as a vendor/artist, attend the show first. See what's on the up and up and what to expect. If you have a variety of different art subjects (looking at all the million of fandoms out there), you can usually gauge what does or does not do well from a walk around. You can also scout general pricing too if you're unsure of what to put your products at.

If you can't go as an attendee but you do have a friend or a mutual that does table, you could ask to go as a helper! This is a great way to understand what an artist alley or show is like without really having to spend money on anything yet plus your friend/mutual will have someone to yap to and assist at the table. Bonuses for everyone!

If you're going to apply to shows in your area, don't start big, start small! Small shows are often great because it's less overwhelming than a large hall with 300 other people selling their wares. Typically you're looking at closer to 50 max, but more likely 30 or less vendors. Additionally, the table costs will be smaller and you can really get to know your neighbours and fellow local artists.

Do not feel the need to go all in or go home with your display if it's your first time. I cannot stress enough that if you've never done a show before to not throw all your eggs in this basket! If you're just starting out, it's understandable that you don't have your display completely planned or fleshed out. You can build on it once you've decided whether or not doing artist alleys and other shows is for you.

If you're not already in an artist community, I highly recommend joining a local one as most prefer to resell or donate their displays to other artists instead of throwing it into the trash. It's also a great way to learn about what shows are happening in the area.

Wait for discounts if you're purchasing from bigger retailers. I was big pika shock when I was going by a kitchen/household supply and furniture store that had all their grid storage cubes at 50% off.

If you're handy with a box cutter, you can also DIY your displays with foam board or cardboard, tape, glue, scissors and a colour printer. From far away (which most people are going to be unless you place your display on the front edge of the table) people can't really tell the difference between a home made display board and something you purchased from a professional printer.

If you're torn between two shows happening on the same weekend/day, try and consider the following:

What kind of audience are going to these shows? Are they mostly families? Teens? College kids?

Does your subject matter or merchandise types appeal to the audience(s) of these shows?

How far away are the shows? Are you commuting by rideshare, car or transit? Do you need to book accommodations? With the travel costs, do you think you'd make money?

Lastly: do you have any expectations for the show and what are they? Are you looking to network with other artists? Make money? If you can't attend in person as an attendee, ask others who have and see what their experience was like.

All this being said, I'd personally LOVE to see more artists in the artist alley — within reason, of course. Obviously conventions shouldn't try and shove an extra hundred people into an already overcrowded room. They do say that variety is the spice of life and I think that having an oodle amount of different types of artists is always a good thing to have.

Anyways, that's it.

I'll be at the Pin + Patch Show later this month! Come say hello if you're going to the event ✌️

In Canadian. I can't imagine it being all that much different in other international artist alleys because the standards of what a table looks like seems to be the same across the board, unfortunately.

Do you pronounce this as "zeen" as in magazine or "zine" as in a glass of wine? To this day, I flip flop on them.

If you wanted to table at both, that can get pretty pricy because of proxy pay, shipping and other chaotic art-related expenses.

Unless the show allows proxies, which some do! But a lot do prefer that you (the artist) appear in person.