Cancelled Shows - How To Deal

This post is going to be more of a vent session which will hopefully end with a resolution for my internal conflict on the issue. I will just continue to write and see what comes out I guess.
Things seemed to be moving along quite well for my business, albeit slowly but getting there. I had recently received word that a private members wine club had seen my work and liked it enough to give me the month of December to display and sell my images. I thought hey this would be a great opportunity especially since it is so close to Christmas, I could possibly get some sales and generate some revenue from this venture.

It was the beginning of October and I had literally just walked out of the Steam Whistle Brewery after hanging my art work there for the duration of the month. I had decided to head over to the venue and do a site spec for my images, checked out placement and the sizes of the photographs that I would hang. I walked out of that meeting feeling great about myself and my business. I began planning for the month long show, ordered some prints, and even planned on trying a couple of new ideas for this engagement. Two days ago I received an e-mail from the owner saying that the gig was cancelled on me as it was promised to someone else by his business partner and there was a communication breakdown.

At that moment I felt like Charlie Brown lining up the football and Lucy pulled it out from under me just as I was about to kick it and I ended up on my back! I was quite upset about this hiccup but getting this out of my head and onto paper has helped me realize that there are always going to be bumps in the road along the way, it’s just a matter of how we deal with them. I have to learn and get used to hearing the word “NO” at times and that in business as with life in general, things are not always going to work out the way we want them to.

Image Courtesy of PopWrapped!

Brad Walsh