or any other type of venue? I would like to try it and would like to here from others who have done this and the success or failures you have had.

Thanks for the replies

Iron sharpens iron

Michael, I have my first festival coming up in a little under 1 onth, so I would be interested to hear from others too.

I’ve done this. Set-up inside a circus tent with a motorcycle dealer and offering pics of people on a KTM dirt bike in the sand dunes (Greenscreen) or at a skate park on a skateboard (also greenscreen). I didn’t have to pay for the space, (My buddies bike shop) This was at an annual Oyster Festival that attracts lots of people and we were charging $12 for a 5x7 or $20 for an 8x10 sheet. Did a total of $400 for the weekend.
The killer was a local radio station was doing Poloroids 50 feet away from my location of your kids standing inside a plywood sharks mouth, for free.
Never shot on spec again.

Tom Robinson wrote:
I’ve done this. Set-up inside a circus tent with a motorcycle dealer and offering pics of people on a KTM dirt bike in the sand dunes (Greenscreen) or at a skate park on a skateboard (also greenscreen). I didn’t have to pay for the space, (My buddies bike shop) This was at an annual Oyster Festival that attracts lots of people and we were charging $12 for a 5x7 or $20 for an 8x10 sheet. Did a total of $400 for the weekend.
The killer was a local radio station was doing Poloroids 50 feet away from my location of your kids standing inside a plywood sharks mouth, for free.
Never shot on spec again.



Sorry to but that's funny..."standing inside a sharks mouth, for free"

OTOH I knew a guy who did the street fair circuit and he would sell around $3-4000 per weekend (spoiler alert: this was before the recession) of bird and landscape and nature prints. He had a camper van to carry all the stuff a and sleep in, a pop up tent thing and tons of prints...from 5x7 to 20x30. And since the customers were buying something to match the sofa or the kitchen or bathroom wallpaper he needed many different color schemes, Blue birds, red birds, sunsets, seascapes, fall foliage. All of these were matted in white board and in a clear envelope.
It sounds like he cashed in but when considering time, gas, inventory I am not sure if he made much of a profit.

I've talked to people who set up booths to sell their photos (framed as well as matted) in community art shows and asked how many they needed to do in a season (Summer in our area) to make it worth while. "At least twelve," has been the usual answer.

There's the entry fee, costs of producing the photo products, $1,500 or more for the booth (since rain and wind are always a possibility, you want your photos protected), a long day to set up, another long day to take down, and two long days of sitting in the booth. Large display panels to hang photos are needed. A vehicle or enclosed trailer large enough to transport booth, display panels and photo products is needed. You need to be set up to accept credit cards -- business agreement with provider, as well as equipment.

Photos must be exceptional to get any attention at all.