Well, that could have been a lot worse. I didn’t sell that much, but I did cover the cost of the space and the beer at the meetup afterwards.

I’d decided to do the minimum necessary, to see how things went. I like the result; in particular some of the comments I received. So I’m going to significantly improve the presentation of my work for next month.

You’ll see from these photos that I simply laid everything flat, and put the photos in small albums for people to browse. Neither was a good presentation. Neither was obvious, neither drew the passing eye. People had to investigate to gather my photographic style. That’s not good enough.

The poetry had another problem. English is not a native language here, although many people speak it. Few people were interested in English language poetry. The guy selling German poetry on the next stall along did a lot better than me. His stall was similar to mine, both in layout and content, so his success wasn’t down to presentation. The difference was German is one of the local mother–tongues. I’m going to reduce my emphasis on poetry. I’m still going to present it, it’s far too good to hide, but the photography will dominate.

I tried displaying the chapbooks so people could easily browse them, but that simply didn’t work. It made them look manky. I need to find a way to display the books so they look good.

So for the June Konscht am Gronn, I'm going to:
— Mount a selection of photographs;
— Find a way to display photographs vertically;
— Expand photo space, reduce poetry space;
— Get some cloth to cover the supplied table;
— Find a way to display books vertically well.

I’m considering getting a portable gazebo. Some people here use them. They offer a solution to the risk of the rain. They allow images to be displayed vertically. However, I’m probably not going to get one for the next event, unless the weather forecast is horrid.

I had a good chat with a number of people in the meetup afterwards. There’s scope for creating a new incomers’ arts community. That should help things develop, and create a base audience for my (and their) work.

Overall, a positive experience.