Wis. — Sunshine Artist magazine, www.sunshineartist.com, announced today the release of its 26th annual 200 Best, ranking the nation’s most-profitable art and craft festivals based on subscribers’ sales performance in 2017.
Launched in 1993, the 200 Best is split into two categories: Fine Art and Design, for events that focus on unique, fine art quality pieces, and Classic and Contemporary Craft, for events that focus on traditional or modern craft and production work. This year’s number one Fine Art and Design show is the La Quinta Arts Festival in La Quinta, California, and the number one Classic and Contemporary Craft show is Christmas in the Country in Hamburg, New York. The entire 2018 list is available in
Sunshine Artist’s September 2018 issue.
To vote, ballots are included in the April issue of Sunshine Artist and are sent via email to email subscribers. Artists are then asked to list the 10 most-profitable art and/or craft shows they exhibited at from the previous year, indicate their income range at each, and note whether they consider themselves to be fine artists or craftspeople for each event. The results are tabulated using a weighted scale based on sales to ensure that all events can compete against each other fairly.
Sunshine Artist’s 200 Best focuses solely on revenue, because that’s the most objective indicator of a show’s future success. Subjective attributes such as artist treatment, amenities, attendance levels, management, or even overall quality can
certainly impact sales, but they’re harder to gauge and therefore have no direct bearing on these rankings.
“For 26 years, the 200 Best has been an invaluable resource to countless artists and craftspeople,” said Stephanie Hintz, editor of Sunshine Artist. “We encourage all professional makers to secure a copy of the September issue and to participate in 200
Best voting each and every year.”
