Greetings!
Thanks to everyone for all your hard work to put on the 2010 MN Tile festival.  It was another amazing festival with great art, tours, speakers, food and setting promoting handmade tile and mosaics with very nice weather (9 years running). Below are all the statistics and images from this years show and comparisons to other years. If you have questions, ideas, or concerns please contact the HTA and we will be happy to get back to you. Check out the day of pictures at the MN Tile Festival page on facebook by clicking here and the Handmade Tile Association.org website |
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The 2010 MN Tile Festival Review
| The 9th Annual Minnesota Tile Festival was a mix of great improvements and some disappointments. We had a full show of artists the second year in a row and the first with out having a national tile conference that brought in more artist vendors. The artists and vendors are more diverse than ever with the expansion of tile setters, a fireplace showroom and more designers. That is a great sign that we are getting a more holistic body at the show for patrons to take in. We hired a new photographer and got lots of great photos to utilize for PR throughout the year. We also hired a film maker to make a video of the show to be able to post on U tube and for PR for TV opportunities, which has already been used. The camera guy works for WCCO TV and got the show on the 10 pm news with clips he took.
Attendance was a disappointment for this year's festival. Attendance was 633, significantly down from last years 765. It is always frustrating when we work so hard to reach out to new audiences and bring in the past audiences to not see success. The major highlight though is the exit surveys which not only tell us people were amazed and delighted with the show but gave us lots of useful info on where to target for better sales for artist. We have already started strategizing on how to capitalize on the new data. Results are are down below.
One of the constants is sales from artists have been consistent form the first year of the MN Tile Festival. Some artist do very well, some artists do well and some do poorly. Every year it is a different category of art that does well. This might have to do with the variety of patrons coming to the show, different types of work shown, booth styles, salesmanship style and pricing of work. Our marketing of the show was a mixed bag of success and presents challenges for the future. We laid a lot of new ground work for the future with some of the concepts like the creation of a logo and tag line (Discover American Tile). We upgraded the show program, hired a filmmaker to film the show and create a 3 minute video of the experience that we can post on U tube and on the website, a new photographer to utilize for PR through out the year. We also courted a lot of media and professional groups we had never approached before. Trebuchet worked angles like getting celebrities to come to the show and radio and TV to be present but it fell through at the last moments and was frustrating not to get the extra attention. But we got a lot of new people thinking about the show that never did before now we have to convert them through out the year.  A huge bright spot was that our social media presence was amazing. It was up from last year and was the major success of driving people to the show. Facebook and the use of our newsletter program to selected groups a month leading up to the show proved to be a great way for us to interact and track our progress. Many of the artists utilized the tools we created in their social media posting the logo, dollar off tickets and free tickets to their peeps. Social Media is very affordable and we got a great response. Thank you to all of our artists for participating and showing the community the amazing variety and selection of handmade tile, mosaics and tile art available. You can click here to visit all of the artists' websites.
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| Results of all data collected | The information we collected is too long for the body of our newsletter please click the link below and you will see all of the years side by side for attendance, money made, lost, how many tickets of each category came in etc. It is very interesting. Tell us your thoughts and if you have any ideas on how to improve.
Results of the 2010 MN Tile Festival data click here
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| The Numbers | |
Here is where the tile festival notices were posted: Star Tribune calendar, Twin Cities Bungalow Club, American Swedish Institute e newsletter, Tile Magazine website, Tile Heritage Foundation website, Yelp, ASI e mail blast, HTA website, many of the HTA member's websites, there were probably more but this is what we know of.
Paid advertising - MPR streaming for a month (140,000 downloads) Tile Directory (full page ad) , postcards(5000), Blue Sky Guide (coupons), Midwest Art Fair full page ad,Summit tour ad, Spaces ad, facebook ads, google keywords.
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Thanks Norma
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 Super thanks to Norma Hanlon the tile festival coordinator. She communicated with the artist, volunteers, laid out the booths, put the artist packets together, ran the silent auction, and took care of all the little details that came up during the event. Here were the questions in the survey | 1. how did you hear about the show? |
| A. Media - 32 specific responses | 71 overall |
| 2. How many years have you attended the show? |
Did you buy anything?A. Yes - 88 B. No - 84 | 3. If you did, was the total... |
| | A. Over $100 | 40 | | B. Under $100 | 55 |
| A. What was your favorite part of the show? |
| | B. Artists | 145 | | C. Speakers | 8 | | D. American Swedish Institute | 70 | | E. Food | 20 | | G. Tours | 9 | | H. Other | 10 |
4. Your home zip codeThe results 82 zip codes were recorded up from 45 last year. 8 were out of state one less than last year and we did have the tile conference going on last year. |
Thanks to our Volunteers
| The work that goes into the event both before, during and after is a testiment to the passion people have about this show and handmade tile and mosaics. These people and all of the volunteers through the years are the legs of the festival. Thanks to everyone!
 Thanks to the American Swedish Institute and Karin Krull the ASI representatives and the countless volunteers. Karin planned the event with Josh Blanc Norma Hanlon and Lisa Trnka. They coordinated all the ASI volunteers as well as the staff Alix Hoff, Deloris Anderson, Donna Pierson, George Swanson, Gerry Anderson, Greta Jaeger, Harlan Widholm, JoAnn Swanson, Lizzie Anderson and Sylvia Myren. Thanks to all of the Handmade Tile Association volunteers too. Tom Hanlon, Alex Chinn, JoAnn Hendricks, Rachel Levy, Rebecca Rayman, Lara Roy, Maxine Theusch, Layl McDill and Daycia McDill.
Thanks to the Brad Benn from Edina Art Center for the Make one Take one tile workshop. Last but not least thanks to Mosaic on a Stick for their mosaic on a stick workshop. Both groups were well received and people were very thrilled with their projects.
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Next Meeting October 18th
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Next meeting will be at Clay Squared to Infinity. 34 13th Ave NE Minneapolis, MN 55413 612-781-6409 www.claysquared.com for directions When - Monday October 18th Time - 6 pm to 8 pm Pot Luck Agenda Review of MN Tile Festival. If you have opinions this is the meeting you should attend. last days to submit for the 2011 Directory. Click here to get ad rates Concepts for the 2011 directory Connections to other tile groups Discuss committees for 2011 |
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Sincerely,
Josh Blanc
Handmade Tile Association.LLC |
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| The movie of the MN Tile Festival |  | 2010 was the year the MN Tile Festival went Hollywood with a professionally produced film of the show. highlights include interviews with artists, meet the president, film of the American Swedish Institute and great handmade tile and mosaics.
Click here and you can watch the U Tube movie
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Award winners
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Some new concepts we did this year was to have a press tent and invite the press to really engage the show and its artists. Three staff from the Pioneer Press were charged with being the jury of the show. They were stunned and initially overwhelmed by how much great work they saw and took over two hours to make their decisions going through the show twice to make sure they saw everything. After a hard deliberated process they selected three artists for Best of Show Awards in the following categories.
Sheryl Tuorila - Most Creative
Laura McCaul of Earth Wood and Fire - Most Unique
Marty Pearson - Most innovative
Having the press be involved in this way allows the organization to have a bigger impression when we send out press releases that they know what an amazing show this is and they can write to that effect.
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Miss out on the Commemorative Tile?
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Special thanks to Sandre Griffen of Blue Marble Clayworks for making our 6th Annual Commemorative tile. If you wanted one please contact us and we will get one out to you.
We still have some left if you would like to purchase one click here and buy online with a credit card and we will mail it to you. Or stop in at the HTA office or call 612-781-6409
or email. |
HTA directory advertising info
| Advertising with
The Handmade Tile Association in 2011
| Deadline October 15th
Ad rates start as low as $99 Contact the HTA today  |
| ATNW tile festival |  | Two weeks after the MN Tile Festival Josh Blanc went out to see our sister organization Artisan Tile North West Handmade Tile Festival. At the next meeting Josh will bring back his discoveries and talk about the similarities and differences of their event. And what we can learn from each other.
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