Despite the addition of wine tasting to the 23rd annual Española Valley Arts Festival, turnout was low at the Española Plaza. While some blamed cold and rainy weather for the lack of attendance, others pointed to the wine itself as the problem.
“The weather has definitely been a downer,” Black Mesa Winery owner Lynda Burd, a festival organizer, said.
By mid-Sunday the winery had sold about four cases of wine.
“Compared to other festivals that’s low,” she said.
Burd said she was pleased however, since it was the first time that the art festival fully incorporated wine into the two-day event.
“You have to try something for two or three years before it takes off,” she said.
Some artists, however would have preferred the festival keep to its previous practice of having the wine tasting in a separate location from the art festival. In previous years, a wine and food tasting had been held the Friday night before the festival began. Mosaic artist Arcenio Rivera has been participating in the festival for eight years. He said adding the wine may have contributed to a low turnout.
“It restricted the customer base because it’s fenced in,” he said. “The fence is intimidating to customers.”
The addition of the wine tent also forced festival organizers to cut the number of artist booths from about 100 to 75.
Burd said in order to comply with liquor and gaming regulations the wine area had to be fenced off and security provided.
“It’s nice to have something like that as part of the festival, but maybe in a separate area where it can be managed and controlled,” Rivera said.
Rivera said he hadn’t even made enough money to cover the $130 cost of the booth rental.
Leroy Espinoza, an artist who does tin work, said he saw very little profit out of this year’s festival. He said the barriers were confusing and making people walk around to one main entrance may have led to potential customers walking away, he said.
But, Espinoza said the wine tasting can’t take all the blame.
“A lot of it probably has to do with gas prices going up and the economy,” he said.
Rivera’s son Mathew Rivera also said the bad economy was a factor. Rivera does mosaic art, mostly featuring religious iconography. Last year he won best in show for a crucifixion piece.
“We don’t have the base like Santa Fe is going to have,” he said.
Mathew Rivera said he would rather do large pieces, but those don’t sell as much as smaller pieces especially when people’s disposable income is not what is used to be.
Burd said the idea was that adding the wine tasting to the annual art festival would attract a new crowd. Long-time festival organizers had been saying for the last few years that new people had to get involved in the festival to keep it from going stale.
“They have wine festivals to the north of us, they have them to the south of us, I don’t know that they’ve ever had any right in Española,” Burd said.
There were some attendees who said the wine attracted them.
Sue and Tom O’Keefe, were traveling through Española on their way back from Taos when they noticed signs for the festival and decided to stop.
“We lucked out,” Tom O’Keefe said.
Hubert Vigil, of Española, stopped by the festival Oct. 4, but had to go to work, so he returned Sunday to taste the wine, he said.
Ymelda Roybal, of Española, was drinking wine at the festival, but the tin artist said the main attraction for her was the art.
“We’re from here so we want to see what’s new and get ideas,” she said.
Attendance was definitely down, Burd said. She estimated around 100 wine tasters. Other factors may be responsible for the low turnout, she said.
The arts festival is usually planned to coincide with the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque to attract tourists from the fiesta, but an art festival in Albuquerque may have taken away from that.
The Festival Board is going to seriously consider moving the event up a few weeks, she said.