Do you, audience who seeks authentic self-expression, want to know how I’m making money at art festivals? Here are my lessons learned as I begin to sell my art professionally and construct a long-term business structure…

Read more: 5 Tips for Making Money at Art Festivals

How am I making money?

Here’s the truth: I’m not… YET! Or maybe ever, at least on these festivals, but that is not why I participate in them. Does it bother me that I’m not making a profit off of them yet? Sometimes. Do I let it get to me? Sometimes. But my loving and supportive partner gave me some unparalleled wisdom when I was having an emotional breakdown in the week leading up to the festival:

"Don't let the world around you tell you how to run your #business. You're running your business the way you run it for a reason, for your #passion, so keep doing it." – #DuffmanPete

— Andrea Geller (@absgeller) March 31, 2023

Lessons Learned

This section is all a big talk, because if you know me, you know I don’t listen to my own advice. But here they are anyway:

Benefiting, not Profiting

I am still benefitting no matter how much money or work hours I spend or make because life isn’t about money. Life is about experiences! And this festival was so empowering in what I was able to accomplish for it and at it virtually on my own. Without further ado, however, here’s all I have to tell you about The Money™:

Money Money Money

These were my main expenses at this festival:

• $15 – business cards
• $40 – all of my prints
• $150 – the moon worm t-shirts
• $40 – packaging
• $50 – signage
• $295 – TOTAL

This particular festival, I also hired a videographer and paid for some drone footage, which cost me less than $200 combined, but only because of friendship discounts!

This means that I am not including the following items or products simply because I owned them previously and did not have to invest in them at this time:

• $50 – Walmart tent; these can be more than $100. I got the cheapest one I could find for the Summer Solstice Festival 2021, which means (Pete and) I put extra effort in to make it last – we don’t let it sit out, are careful while folding it up, don’t let rain accumulate on top, etc.
• $50 – foldable tables; I borrowed one from a friend, too.
• $50 – display stands; Pete built mine using scrap wood. Buying something similar I’d guess is about fifty bucks.
• $20/each – GSOVIBES t-shirts; I already owned these from when my former business partner and I had ordered them under our LLC.

Overall, I made about $300 in sales at the actual festival, meaning I broke even with the expenses to make the products I sold, but still spent more money on the photos and film footage. I also charged Oden a very small service fee for the frog design and for helping with the logistics of getting the t-shirts made, and used that money to purchase hoodies for myself, Bob, and Chee Chee. So, net zero.

Now let’s talk about the hours spent workin’!

Labor Labor Labor

• 10+ hours on the Worm design from sketch to final digital versions
• 15+ hours on the Spring Peeper design from sketch to final digital version, to sticker
• 10+ hours on the Pete and Mango comic, including the Princess Mango sticker
• 4+ hours on my business cards design
• 5+ hours trying to figure out the best file format for the prints and passing by Allstar Printing at least three times
• 8+ hours hand cutting the stickers (this does not include hand cutting the prints from last time)
• 8+ hours hand cutting the cardboard that went inside each t-shirt bundle
• 6+ hours hand packaging all the t-shirts
• ~ 60 TOTAL HOURS just on the production of the products themselves! Planning, coordinating, other details not included.

If I were being paid $7.50/hour for this labor, not including tax, I’d have made $450! 🙂

This is not to mention the 18 hours spent day-of actually doing the festival (8 AM to 2 AM from leaving the house to getting home)!

You may also be wondering: how did you fit 60 hours of work in two months while also working approximately 50-55 hours a week, maintaining a semi-regular workout schedule, eating right and spending time with friends and family?

The answer is partly that I have an awesome boyfriend and general support system. The last two weeks leading up to the festival I didn’t go to the gym at all, and in the last week I was completely sedentary. Pete does most of the cooking already but in those crunch hours he was bringing me meals mid-packaging, mid-sticker-cutting, and forcing me to sit down and eat. And, I would bring stickers to the School Bus driving job and snip snip during layovers and while the kids loaded up in the afternoons.

Why so open about money?

Why not? I hope YOU, other vendors and artists, who are trying to monetize your work see that just because my booth is a spectacle, doesn’t mean I’m “making it” any more than you are. I hope you see the value beyond the dollar signs. I hope you can learn from my mistakes. I hope you get ideas on how to strategize your own businesses.

I hope you value my honesty.