{"id":678,"date":"2010-12-12T22:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-12T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/678-selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events.html"},"modified":"2014-07-03T17:01:38","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T17:01:38","slug":"selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events","title":{"rendered":"Selling Your Shapeways Creations at Themed Conventions and Art Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything I can tell you about selling your own pieces to customers face to face is only what I’ve experienced in the past few months since I started to take my Shapeways art to various events<\/a>. One key piece of advice I would give is to have a small spiel ready explaining as briefly as possible what 3D printing is, in layman’s terms. Of course if you’re not much of a talker you can bring your smart phone or laptop and have a nice explanatory YouTube video handy. You would be surprised how many people don’t have the slightest clue about 3D printing despite all the cool media attention it’s been getting lately.<\/p>\n

 
\n<\/p>\n

I personally started off selling my creations (a few themed stainless steel and sandstone pieces) at a Japanese Animation<\/a> convention in their “Artists Alley”. More recently I also started selling at an Arts Market in downtown San Francisco and in March will have a go at my first big convention which is Steampunk<\/a> themed. A good way to go when starting out is to share art space with friends, it brings down costs and lets you take a few breaks. Sometimes things will sell, and sometimes they won’t. If you try a selling venue out make sure to bring something to pass the time. You’ll know by the first event or two if selling your pieces in person is your niche, or if you want to go running back into your pajamas to make all of your sales online.<\/p>\n

 
\n<\/p>\n

Most good-sized cities will have themed conventions and art events, the costs
\nvary widely depending on the location and popularity of the events.
\nCheck what permits and\/or other paperwork you’ll need depending on your
\nselling location. A lot of artistic events will have very helpful staff
\nthat can tell you what’s needed.<\/p>\n

A portion of art events say that pieces must be handmade. From
\nwhat I’ve gathered that’s mainly to keep mass manufactured pieces from
\noverrunning the artistic feel of events. 3D printing is very very new
\nto most of these events, conventions, art shows etc so my opinion would
\nbe is if they accept 2D prints as within the “handmade” spectrum
\nthere’s nothing to prevent 3D prints from also being considered.<\/p>\n

One more piece of advice is to be careful when making themed
\nart that isn’t completely original and perhaps inspired by your
\nfavorite comic book or video game, some things are copyrighted and some
\naren’t. <\/p>\n

Conventions and art events are fun to try out, even if it doesn’t end
\nup being for you. Remember, even if you don’t sell much, it’s also
\nabout exposure (make sure you have those business cards<\/a> handy) and feeling out the market to see what people like and want.Keep an eye on the Shapeways events<\/a> and Meetup<\/a> page to see when the Shapeways team will be in your neighbourhood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything I can tell you about selling your own pieces to customers face to face is only what I’ve experienced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481,478],"tags":[480,482,479,477],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shapeways","category-community","tag-4-art","tag-6-inspiration","tag-3-tutorials","tag-1-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":false,"yoast_head":"\nSelling Your Shapeways Creations at Themed Conventions and Art Events - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everything I can tell you about selling your own pieces to customers face to face is only what I've experienced in the past few months since I started to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Moonshadows80\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Moonshadows80\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e445c6ea64fe141158eb3d6a3416c503\"},\"headline\":\"Selling Your Shapeways Creations at Themed Conventions and Art Events\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-12-12T22:37:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-03T17:01:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events\"},\"wordCount\":509,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"keywords\":[\"Art\",\"Inspiration\",\"Tutorials\",\"What's Hot\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Shapeways\",\"The Community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/selling-your-shapeways-creations-at-themed-conventions-and-art-events\",\"name\":\"Selling Your Shapeways Creations at Themed Conventions and Art Events - 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