When I first started reporting on tech companies, they were just at the beginning of building themselves into “silos”… I think some PR people called it “verticalization” [sic], or “synergy”. Basically the larger companies started buying up other companies so that all of your tech-needs could be serviced by one company.

…as a quick recent example, think of 2012 when Facebook bought Instagram, a company of 13-people, for a US$1B. Then they bought WhatsApp for US$19B, and Oculus for US$2B. Facebook, or Meta, has been turning themselves into a “silo”, so you wouldn’t have to travel to, or use, another site. And once you’re in, you’re trapped in. Like, you get an Instagram account to showcase your art, and you can be quite happy with the views and comments you get, but — and it’s a giant but, nobody off Instagram can directly view your work.

All that to say two things…

1. Vankleek Hill’s last remaining major Festival, the ‘Vankleek Hill Agricultural Fair’ — as well as the, now defunct, ‘Beau’s OktoberFest’, operate(d) as Silos. They both bring / brought between 10,000 to 20,000 visitors into Vankleek Hill (the Fair brought in 14,000 this year over four days), which people expected would spill over into local businesses, so other groups would make plans for their organizations’ events around those much larger Events, with the expectation of ‘spillover’… ‘surely we’ll get some of the visitors to also visit our event / store’.

…but it never worked out that way. So organizations and businesses had to adapt. A good example from this year would be a small, local restaurant called ‘Anjou’s’. During this year’s Fair, instead of keeping their regular physical location open, they brought their pizza to the Fair by renting space on the Midway from the Agricultural Society.

So the Midway absorbed ‘Anjou’s’, if only for the weekend. But I wanted to go to Anjou’s original location for one of their spectacular bacon-cheeseburgers, so they ended up losing out on my business. The best case option would be to have a piece of the Midway action, and their original location opened to get traffic at both. But it’s very difficult for a small organization to get a chunk of both at the same time.

Anyway… this years ‘2024 Art In The Garden’ (AITG) event, tried to draw a chunk of the visitors away from the ‘180th Vankleek Hill Agricultural Fair’ by holding its event on Saturday, which is the busiest day for the Fair.

…and, just based on the size of the crowd that I witnessed at this years AITG, compared to last year’s [link], I don’t think it worked.

2. Artists who rely completely on their Instagram or Facebook page to advertise or showcase their work are losing out on revenue and recognition by relying solely on the Meta ‘silo’.

Case in point, the artists showcasing their work at Vankleek Hill’s latest AITG event. This year’s (the third annual) AITG [link] brought 56 artists to Vankleek Hill from as far away as Perth and Montreal to Vankleek Hill. Most* of the 56 artists offered an Instagram account when asked if people could see more of their work, but if people who want to see their work don’t have an Instagram account, they’re out of luck — that’s the ‘silo effect’.

*…there were maybe five who had a website, then there were some who could only offer an email address (one offered a link that was dead).

If you want to showcase your work as an artist, or have your work publicized, or just to have people contact you and find out more about you and your work, you need to have a website… something outside of the silo. Some of the artists I spoke to talked about cost and time, but once it’s done you only have to update it periodically, if at all, and sites like WordPress.com [link] are free, offer hundreds of templates, decent human support, and are relatively easy to maintain.

…artists need sites, like these fantastic ones I discovered at the AITG: Monz Creations [link]; Shanna Steals [link]; Stephanie Pehar [link], and; Laura Eustache [link].

…anyway. Sorry, this post is far too long. If you’re down with it, just tap on a photo to get the carousel going. Feel free to leave a comment… or not, no pressure.