Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What do you consider buy/sell?
A. Anything mass produced that you do not make is strictly prohibited. We do not allow production companies or distributors to participate. When buy/sell items are discovered, the vendor will be asked to take them away out of sight.  That vendor may not be invited back for future fairs.   

Q.  Why do I have to park in the art club designated lot while I am a vendor at your fair?
A.  This is a very small town and parking downtown is always at a premium during our fairs, which are held on two of our busiest weekends.  The parking downtown, whether on the street or in a private lot, is where your customers will have to park.  Many customers also park in offsite parking.  If you park downtown, you'll have fewer customers, and it's disrespectful to the merchants and citizens who are our neighbors.  We provide free shuttles, and we monitor your compliance to this rule.

Q. Why can't I send photographs on paper for you to jury?
A.  Our jurying process involves showing digital images to our jury members using a projector.  The same images are printed and used by our auditors to make sure that your work and that of other artists and craftspeople shown at our fairs are the same kind of material as was sent in at the time of the application.  

Q.  What's a good size for digital images for your jury?
A.  A common size our applicants provide is 2700 x 1800 pixels (9” x 6” at 300 pixels per inch). Extremely small digital images can’t be juried -- we can't really see them, and your work doesn't look as good to our jury members as it could. 

Q.  I'm a jeweler and I would like to show at your fairs.  Any advice?
A.  We always receive many more applications for jewelers than we receive for any other art or craft, and we always receive many more applications than we have spaces available for that category. We limit the number of jewelers we admit to each of our fairs to a set percentage of the total. Keeping that limit makes better business for the vendors we do admit.  Our approach has been to try to select representative vendors from each of the subcrafts that make up jewelry -- such as lampwork, metalsmithing, etc -- so the customer is presented with a variety of choices. We select the jewelers for both fairs right after our deadline, April 1, so we recommend jewelers get applications in by our deadline to be considered.

Q.  Do you have any advice for people who want to man their booth alone?
A.  Yes.  We don't recommend it.  We're a small organization.  We can't provide extensive help loading and unloading.  We can't provide booth-sitting services -- our liability insurance just doesn't cover us on that.  Unloading, moving your vehicle off to remote parking, manning a booth, tearing down a booth, retrieving your vehicle and loading can be a lot of work.  It takes at least two people to do it.  Find someone to help you among your circle of friends and relatives.

Q.  Where can I stay in Saugatuck?
A.  Summer lodging in Saugatuck is very limited and often requires a minimum of two or three nights.  For hotel lodging in the nearby Holland area go to:

Businessfinder.mlive.com
    
Then fill in the what space with “hotels” and the where space with “Holland, MI” and click the “find” button.   There are 200 listings with phone numbers and other information.  Do the same using “campgrounds” and “Holland, MI” to find 10 camping areas in Saugatuck, Holland, and Zeeland areas and others below those 10 that are a bit farther away.

Q.  Is there someone I can call?
A.  Sure! For art fair questions call Aron at 616-255-2043