World Printmakers’ Print Workshop Central

What Do You Love? Rock ‘n Roll, Cars, Football, Flowers, Computers?
Why Not Market Your Images at Their Respective Trade Fairs?

A couple of weeks ago our friend, Andy MacDougall, the master screen printer based in Royston, BC off the west coast of Canada, (You may know him as the Mayor of www.squeegeeville.com. ) wrote this comment on one of the discussion threads on the Cut the Gallery Out of the Picture website.  I found his remarks fascinating, as they seemed to point the way to new venues for printmakers to market their art.  Andy says:

You know a little about my work with the gig poster rock artists, a group which I really like. I participate in ‘Flatstocks’ fairs, organized by the American Poster Institute (API) and taking place in conjunction at music-related events in Austin, Seattle and Chicago in the USA, and Hamburg in Germany. Each artist brings their work and rents a 10×10-foot space, and sells to the crowds themselves. The poster art is music related, but many of the printmakers also do art prints, or make other items. Part of the deal is you have to create all the work yourself.

What is different about this way of selling compared to either an art fair or a booth at a local Saturday market is the size of the crowds (Seattle Bumbershoot can have up to 250,000 people over the weekend), along with the fact they are there with a common interest (music) that relates to the art.

So, if you have thematic work (flowers, animals, etc) maybe a solution would be to do a booth at a flower show, or a zoo, or something along that line, in order to be in a place where people would not normally expect to see an art display, but where the art is related to the show theme. Automotive art at a grand prix race, for example.

Some of our people will do $10,000 on a three-day show, and this is with prints that sell for $20-$100…

Andy MacDougall agreed to talk a little more in detail with Print Workshop Central on the subject.

Question: Please give us a bit of background, Andy. Exactly who are the “gigposter rock artists” and what did your work with them entail?
Answer: All around the world, anywhere there is a live music scene, there are a small dedicated group of artist/designers who create poster art promoting live music shows. They are called gigposter artists. Most of the ones I know are heavy into some genre of rock. I’ve been making posters for bands and to promote gigs dating back to 1971, when I first started playing professionally, and through the internet found my way to a website called www.gigposters.com .  So did literally thousands of others who have this particular obsession worldwide.

The website led directly to the first Flatstock rock poster show, which quickly spawned an organizing group called the API (American Poster Institute). The API offered an official sounding front to a rag-tag group of crazies who then approached SXSW in Austin (a gigantic independent music conference which sees over 2,000 bands and upwards of 100,000 music business types descending on the Texas city every year) and Bumbershoot in Seattle (250,000 people over the labor day weekend attending a mixed music/arts festival) and convinced them that a rock poster exhibition would be popular with their attendees . A few years later, they expanded the Flatstock show to the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, and then jumped the pond to the Reeperbahn Music Festival in Hamburg Germany. And they have grown extremely popular and draw collectors and fans – try walking the aisles – sometimes you can barely move.

I attended Flatstock 5 on assignment from Screenprinting Magazine (see the story here,  http://www.screenweb.com/content/rebirth-screen-printed-concert-poster ) and in true Hunter S. Thompson fashion ended up joining the API and attending future shows as an exhibitor and then demonstrator – 98% of the artists screenprint their work, and there was such an interest in the process, the API board encouraged me to start doing on-site demos. At Flatstock 22 last September I printed eight different posters ranging up to five colors in editions of approx 60 pieces. The artist signs and numbers them, and we both sell them to recoup expenses and make a bit of cash. It is probably the most fun I’ve ever had printing, and when we start a run we draw dense crowds.

Q: Unless the venues are near to your studio it sounds expensive to fly to Austin or Hamburg. How many rock-poster publishers can permit themselves that luxury?
A: Not every API artist attends each Flatstock. But the locations are such that maybe 40-50% can drive. I don’t know about others, but I drive to Seattle, and fly to Austin, and pass on the other events. There must be enough interest and value, as the allotted booths are always full, with waiting lists.

Many of the artists don’t look at attending as a pure dollars and cents transaction based on sales – Austin is attractive to some because they make connections to promoters and bands who give them future work. Others, say the ones who fly from the US to Hamburg, set up other art shows in other locations in Europe. Me, I have sold lots of books and made connections for equipment sales or workshops. Very social, as we end up doing things as a group in the evenings, hosted by the local artists and I have made some lasting friendships, so I treat it as a paid holiday too. I know a lot of the others view it this way.

Q: What kind of prices are we looking at for those 10×10-foot booths?
A: Around $250, but you have to be an API member ($40) By comparison, my 10×10 at SGIA costs me over $2500. The API gets us a good deal, because they sell the whole rock poster show to the event organizers as a draw, much like a musical act. And it is – the rock poster and the style of ‘street art’ is universal. The booths are nothing fancy, cardboard, wood, or tent walls and a table, and we display our prints unframed. The pros bring pop top flip files with everything categorized.

Q: How many of these shows have you participated in personally, and what were the results. They must have been OK or you would continue to go back, no?
A: Hmmmm- I think I’ve attended 11. I’ve always managed to cover my expenses, and some years come back with a few thousand in my pocket and some great memories. But like I said above, there are other spin offs – future commissions and sales, contacts that turn into work opportunities in the future – You will never know what great things could happen if you don’t put yourself out there and try it. This is one of the essential truths of life.

Q: When you say “other items,” besides posters and art prints, what sort of things are you referring to?
A: Some artists and studios just stick to posters or artprints, but many others put their images and ideas on clothing, stickers are big, one fellow makes clocks, Ouiji boards, and all sorts of wack things, another person works exclusively on wood and also sells boxes, calendars, coasters, and other items he designs, prints, and fabricates. Many of the participants have books featuring their art. One of the keys to this is using screenprinting – it really is the ‘print anywhere’ process, allowing artists to put their art on almost anything they can hold still and print.

P: You say, “Part of the deal is that you have to do all the work yourself…” Is that to assure that agent/middlemen don’t set up stands with other people’s work?
A: Exactly. This is about putting the artist directly in contact with the customer. You sink or swim based on your work and its appeal to the audience. The price helps, the subject matter helps, the names of the bands help, your body English, your salesmanship, the volume of work… all these things come into play a bit, and it’s true the heavy hitters have a fan base and ‘guaranteed sales’ from collectors, but for the most part the audience is just walking by looking, and stopping and buying when the art speaks to them. This is about as pure a transaction between artist and buyer as there is.

Q: What are your favourite venues for this type of sales?
A: I like the Bumbershoot type of event, which is not just music, but all arts – they have book arts, a mini film festival, visual arts, performance, comedy – this brings in a diverse crowd, with a bit wider taste in print subject matter – not just the boobs/skulls/eyeball lovin’ kids who attend an event like Pitchfork in Chicago, which is entirely a youth oriented rock music festival. At Bumbershoot we are also indoors in a large pavilion plunked right in centre of the whole fair. So you can’t miss it. Chicago and Hamburg are outdoors in event tents, I’m not a fan of that.

Q: What was your favourite stand at these fairs? What was great about it?
A: I think the most fun I had was in Austin a few years back. The API braintrust got Toyota as a sponsor, and their advertsing agency came up with the idea of setting up five different print kiosks/Toyota displays throughout the downtown to promote Flatstock, which is housed in the convention centre. So they had me and four other screenprinting shops making free posters on the streets, a different one each day, which were then given away to the crowds walking around. (SXSW takes place all over Austin, there are literally bands playing in parks, alley ways, rooftops, and any bar restaurant or store with a stage) We were paid to do this, so we didn’t have to worry about selling anything. And Toyota provided helpers! It was great promo for Toyota, and for Flatstock. Four days, 17 different images, 7,000 posters.

Q: Given the relentless evolution of the war of the rich against the poor, do you think there will be any crumbs left for printmakers in 2010?
A: Posters and prints are exactly what poor people need. Cheap art! And rich people, well, we need them too, to give us poor printmakers hope for the future – hope that we can sell a piece of $2 paper covered in ink with a signature for $1000. That buys a lot of cat food in our old age….

Q: Do you see the possibility of working a similar strategy on Internet, or has Google already gotten there first with Google Ads? Because this is the essence of Google ad strategy isn’t it: theme-related products and services. Why aren’t we billionaires, Andy?
A: It’s not like Google invented target marketing. Each Flatstock has a folded poster/brochure that contains particpating artist’s website and contact info. These are heavily distributed. Most all of the artists deal their posters online. I get emails long after the event from people looking for prints they saw. Gigposters, ebay, dealers and collectors and galleries all use the internet to market these type of prints. So it’s happening that way. But unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever be billionaires Miguel. Guys with white beards can only aspire to playing Santa Claus. For minimum wage. One month a year. And the Santa-themed art market is saturated.

Thanks for the promo, Andy (“Ho, ho, ho…”), and for this smashing interview, which I suspect is going to make money for some of our print studios. For more of Andy MacDougall’s wit and wisdom, have a look at his Squeegeeville website.