Artfest International, Inc.

Who We Are

Artfest International, Inc. has been in the art business as gallery owners and operators since 2003.  From this experience, we discovered an unfilled need for businesses and individuals, centered on the industries of art and home decor, to have a more comprehensive way to expand their marketing presence beyond their physical locations and company websites.  

Directors and Executive Officer
 
Edward Vakser, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board 
 
Edward Vakser, who was the President and Chief Executive Officer of ACHI since 2004 now holds the same position with us.  For the past 24 years, Mr. Vakser has been involved in a multitude of enterprises including owning the second largest staging company in North Texas and producing some of the largest corporate and entertainment industries events.  He has been awarded several growth and performance industry awards.  For over 10 years, Mr. Vakser has been working on several intellectual property concepts including ACHI, 3D Concert, Wrestling, Ultimate Fighting and Extreme Sports, along with a multitude of art, recording, and performing artists. Edward Vakser currently serves as ARTI President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board.

Larry D. Ditto, Ph. D., Director 
 
Larry D. Ditto has been involved with ARTI since early 2005 as its then CEO and was later appointed President and Chairman of the Board of Directors.  In 1979, Mr. Ditto became President, CEO, and 50% owner of a business that provided group purchasing programs for nursing homes.  He specialized in negotiating agreements with suppliers forpurchasesof hundred of millions of dollars.  The company was sold in 1996 to its largest competitor, and he accepted a work/consulting agreement with the new owners.  His contract ended in 2006.  In 1967, Mr. Ditto completed an MA in elementary administration and entered the doctoral program at Michigan State University as a teaching fellow. Mr. Ditto currently serves on the ARTI Board of Directors.

How It Works

Artfest revenue models are driven by online buyer and seller subscriptions, enhanced by add-on cross-sell purchases, and services that include list rental and marketing tools to help our members pull buyers into purchasing opportunities.  Fee structures are based on member type and chosen services.

MyArtfest.com will launch first. It serves as a concierge, a referral service between artists, private collectors, interior designers, retailers, wholesalers, and gallery operators who buy, sell and trade valuable art and home décor. This subscriber service offers e-commerce visibility and convenience.  Subscribers can post items for sale or trade, search for their perfect item, and post information about themselves.  New items will be uploaded regularly and fresh artists and galleries constantly featured so buyers will have reason to return again and again to MyArtfest.com.

Four member types are structured with prices and features specific to their needs.


~Business members can buy and sell.  They can post an unlimited number of items for durations of 1 to 90 days.  Their subscription-based membership runs for 90 day increments with an automatic renewal by credit card.  Members can opt-out at any time.  Business members are defined as those holding a retail license and a physical and/or Internet presence.  
 
~Artist Members can buy and sell.  They can post and unlimited number of items for durations of 1 to 90 days.  Their subscription-based membership runs for 90 day increments with an automatic renewal by credit card.  Members can opt-out at any time.  Artist members are defined as those only selling their own works. 

~Private Collectors can buy and sell.  There is no registration or subscription fee for these members.  They "pay as they go" for each 90-day posting and a referral fee when they wish to contact a Seller. The per occurrence-per item price is much higher than the subscription rates so private collectors are defined as buyers who primarily want to buy, but will also occasionally sell items that no longer fit in their home or matches their design plan.

~Designer Members (pending)

 
Auto-renew subscription fees will pay for base services while add-on fees, such as premier placement of an item and attention-getting icons, color and bolding will be charged on an opt-in basis.

Buyers and sellers will find a simple, one page registration process that takes only a minute to sign up. Although it is not required to register if all they want to do is view listings on this site, the site will encourage them to take advantage of all the other free features that registering has to offer. 
  
At launch the site will have these features for sellers: 

• "My Account" pages allow sellers to edit account settings any time...day or night.
  
• Link to their web-page.  A unique seller information page will be a post launch enhancement.
  
• "Listing" process is very simple to use. The site guides the user through each step of the process which only takes a minute or two before the listing is live on the site.  Multiple photos can be loaded.
  
• "My Active Listings" page shows a list of  sellers "Active Listings" on the site, as well as the opportunity to edit those listings.
  
• "Browse by thumbnails" feature allows for the first photo uploaded to be displayed as a thumbnail image in the New Items section of the home page – visible to visitors browsing the site. 
  
• "Seller's Other Listings" link is conveniently located on each listing display page for potential buyers to view all of the sellers other listings that are currently active on the site.
  
• "Listing Extras" features allow additional indicators to listing to attract more attention from potential buyers while they are browsing the site.
  
• "Attention Getters" feature allows sellers to draw special attention to their items by selecting one of the attention getter icons. 
  
• "Featured Listing" status gives the option to give listings some additional exposure on the home page feature section and at the top of all browse listing pages.
  
• "Better Placement" feature gives listing priority (higher placement within table) over other listings within that same category. 
  
• "Bolding" feature bolds the text in the listing and changes the background color for additional attention.
  

• "My Account" pages allow buyer to edit your account settings any time...day or night.
  
• "Listing Favorites" allows buyer to keep a list of "Listings to Watch". They can add as many listings as they want and delete them any time within the personal account pages.  
  
• "Advanced Search" page allows buyer to narrow their search or expand their search to meet exact specifications. 
  
• "Messaging System" gives buyer the ability to communicate with sellers directly from this site without having to open up their email application. When the seller replies to their message through the Message System, that message will be stored on the site for them to retrieve later. 
  
• Seller's Other Listings" link is conveniently located on the ad display page for buyer to view all of a particular seller's listings that are currently active on the site. 
  
• "Tell-a-Friend" link on each listing display page allows buyer to quickly send a listing's details to a friend using the site's messaging system. No need for email! 
  
• "Browse by thumbnails" allows buyer to browse the site previewing thumbnail images of listings without having to first click through to the listing details page. 
  
• "Contact Seller" link is easily located on each listing page for buyer to contact the seller directly with any questions concerning their listing. The listing ID is automatically included in the message that is sent.

Features for Sellers and Buyers:
 

• "Tell-a-Friend" link on each listing display page allows visitors to quickly send a listing's details to a friend using the site's messaging system. 
  
• "Contact Seller" link is explicitly located on each listing page for buyers to contact sellers directly with any questions they may have concerning the listing. The listing title and ID is automatically included in the message that is sent for quick reference.

The Buyers Awards Program
 
We appreciate our buyers – and to support our sellers we are offering FREE art incentives to Buyers.  MyArtfest.com provides a gallery of art choices from which the buyer can choose. The procedure for claiming awards is easy and convenient.

 
MyArfest Services will rollout when MyArtfest.com is stabilized. 
 
 

Our Partners

CSD - Celebrity Sports Framing

Luxor International

Luxor Art Museum

Our Software

MyArtfest.com and MyArtfest Services are built on a platform of Geodesic Solutions Enterprise software.  It is the most feature rich classified and auction application in the market. We chose it because the code is “open” or unencrypted to allow for features of our business development model to be incorporated. Only the file or files necessary to control the software's license key are encrypted. This ultimately provides a large jump forward to achieving the functionality we need. It is Internet based software which means we can administer our site from virtually anywhere in the world, as long as we have an Internet connection.
 
The software's admin control panel assigns html templates to the various pages within the site. There are a wide variety of switches and modules allowing us to turn features on and off with ease.  In additional the HTML based functionality gives us total design flexibility just as we would have would when setting up a typical static HTML website.
 
Software features:

• High Traffic Capability - Ability to handle extreme amounts of traffic due to its database functionality.       
  
• Unlimited Listings - Scalable to a virtually limitless number of listings.       
  
• Unlimited Users - Scalable to a virtually limitless number of users.       
  
• Unlimited Categories – We can any number of categories.       
  
• Unlimited Subcategories - Allows any number of subcategories.       
  
• Unlimited Category Specific Questions - Allows as many questions per category as desired.   
  
• Seamless Updates - Site design and settings are stored in the database, allowing receipt and implementation of software updates seamlessly without affecting existing changes.      
  
• Hosting Portability - Your MySQL database and files can be backed up and moved to a different host without losing any data...site design, users, listings, everything can be moved.      
  
• Dynamic Extra Pages - Allows creation of extra pages to use for additional content.   
  
• Intelligent Thumbnail Scaling - Specify thumbnail image sizes within the software's admin panel.        
  
• Unix or Windows - Has capability to run on both Unix/Linux and Windows web servers.
  
• Zip/Postal Code Proximity Search - Can be integrated with the GeoProducts ZipSearch Addon, which allows site visitors to perform proximity search (in miles) based upon a Zip Code entered.            
  
• PHP Source Code NOT Encrypted - Gives full access to the PHP Source Code so that edits, enhancements, and feature additions can be made to the software.      
  
• Enhanced Email Settings - To take advantage of either our server's Standard SendMail configuration or SMTP configuration.       
  
• Copy categories, Subcategories and Category Specific Questions from one category to another saving valuable hours of setup time.       
  
• Template Design Flexibility - Template based platform allows for complete flexibility in design layout. The template's html is built from the opening html tag to closing html tag, allowing our own meta data to be laid into the template.      
  
• Module Based Features - Each feature (module) of the software has its own specific tag, which allows move/edit/deletes that tag anywhere within the template that we want the feature to be displayed.      
  
• Create Unlimited Templates - Develop individual templates for unlimited number of pages. No PHP experience is required. Create an unlimited number of templates to assign a unique template for every page if you want to, including on a category by category basis.  
  
• Additional Sortable Fields - These fields can be set up to be used as 'sortable columns' (sort listings) while browsing the site's categories.
• Meta Tags - Eenter meta tags through the admin panel so that the meta tags are applied across all pages of the site.
• Page Titles - Unique titles are dynamically produced for each page by the software based upon the page of your site that the visitor is browsing. For example, if a visitor is browsing the 'Paintings' category, 'Paintings' will be displayed in the browser's page title. If the visitor is viewing a listing, the actual title of the listing will be used for the browser's page title.
• Page Linking - Every page of the software has a distinct URL that can be 'linked to' from other websites. This includes individual categories, subcategories, listings, etc. 
  
• Editable Text Areas - Every piece of text displayed on the site has a 'text area' associated with it. Since it is a 'text area' and not a 'text field', you can enter 'html' into that area which may be used to improve search engine effectiveness. 
  
• Search Engine Friendly URLs - The software uses 'mod-rewrite' on the server to display our site's URLs in a .html format rather than a .php format. It does this through the SEO Addon, included with our Enterprise Editions. 
  
• Included:  GDLibrary  - converts customers' uploaded images to a smaller physical size, thereby condensing the size of the image so that each image uses less disk space and pages will load faster.
  
• Included: IonCube or Zend Optimizer - boosts the speed of PHP scripts and code.

The software has the foundational capability to allow each customer user to add inventory items for sale and manage those items with sales features that enhance visibility. It is designed as a subscription and add-on feature revenue model.  However, it has required significant modification to convert it from the original single-type user to our model of Private Collector, Business, and Artist user.  Each user requires different pricing and feature options.  In addition, we must modify the payment method from one used in an auction environment (like eBay) to a more direct pay for subscription model as we are not handling the cashiering for our users purchase activity.  We have implemented an SSL certificate which is required when using this particular payment structure.  All major credit cards (except American Express) will be accepted at launch.
 
The software has robust search capability, however, its auction-type category layout was insufficient for our business model.  A significant amount of time and money has gone into modifying the search to its first level of improvement and enhancements will continue even after launch. At launch users will be able to search by category and using “power search” they can search by one or a combination of: category, keyword, price range, artist name, dimensions, and location.  The keyword search will read all titles and descriptions and includes matching by whole words, partial word, and by item number. Additional variables can and will be added in after-launch enhancement plans.
 
Category options include Art, Designer Décor, Antiques, Items Wanted and Will Trade options. The site can hold virtually an unlimited number of items for sale.

MyArtfest.com and MyArtfest Services are built on a platform of Geodesic Solutions Enterprise software.  It is the most feature rich classified and auction application in the market. We chose it because the code is “open” or unencrypted to allow for features of our business development model to be incorporated. Only the file or files necessary to control the software's license key are encrypted. This ultimately provides a large jump forward to achieving the functionality we need. It is Internet based software which means we can administer our site from virtually anywhere in the world, as long as we have an Internet connection.
 
The software's admin control panel assigns html templates to the various pages within the site. There are a wide variety of switches and modules allowing us to turn features on and off with ease.  In additional the HTML based functionality gives us total design flexibility just as we would have would when setting up a typical static HTML website.
 
Software features:
 

• High Traffic Capability - Ability to handle extreme amounts of traffic due to its database functionality.       
  
• Unlimited Listings - Scalable to a virtually limitless number of listings.       
  
• Unlimited Users - Scalable to a virtually limitless number of users.       
  
• Unlimited Categories – We can any number of categories.       
  
• Unlimited Subcategories - Allows any number of subcategories.       
  
• Unlimited Category Specific Questions - Allows as many questions per category as desired.   
  
• Seamless Updates - Site design and settings are stored in the database, allowing receipt and implementation of software updates seamlessly without affecting existing changes.      
  
• Hosting Portability - Your MySQL database and files can be backed up and moved to a different host without losing any data...site design, users, listings, everything can be moved.      
  
• Dynamic Extra Pages - Allows creation of extra pages to use for additional content.   
  
• Intelligent Thumbnail Scaling - Specify thumbnail image sizes within the software's admin panel.        
  
• Unix or Windows - Has capability to run on both Unix/Linux and Windows web servers.
  
• Zip/Postal Code Proximity Search - Can be integrated with the GeoProducts ZipSearch Addon, which allows site visitors to perform proximity search (in miles) based upon a Zip Code entered.            
  
• PHP Source Code NOT Encrypted - Gives full access to the PHP Source Code so that edits, enhancements, and feature additions can be made to the software.      
  
• Enhanced Email Settings - To take advantage of either our server's Standard SendMail configuration or SMTP configuration.       
  
• Copy categories, Subcategories and Category Specific Questions from one category to another saving valuable hours of setup time.       
  
• Template Design Flexibility - Template based platform allows for complete flexibility in design layout. The template's html is built from the opening html tag to closing html tag, allowing our own meta data to be laid into the template.      
  
• Module Based Features - Each feature (module) of the software has its own specific tag, which allows move/edit/deletes that tag anywhere within the template that we want the feature to be displayed.      
  
• Create Unlimited Templates - Develop individual templates for unlimited number of pages. No PHP experience is required. Create an unlimited number of templates to assign a unique template for every page if you want to, including on a category by category basis.  
  
• Additional Sortable Fields - These fields can be set up to be used as 'sortable columns' (sort listings) while browsing the site's categories.
• Meta Tags - Eenter meta tags through the admin panel so that the meta tags are applied across all pages of the site.
• Page Titles - Unique titles are dynamically produced for each page by the software based upon the page of your site that the visitor is browsing. For example, if a visitor is browsing the 'Paintings' category, 'Paintings' will be displayed in the browser's page title. If the visitor is viewing a listing, the actual title of the listing will be used for the browser's page title.
• Page Linking - Every page of the software has a distinct URL that can be 'linked to' from other websites. This includes individual categories, subcategories, listings, etc. 
  
• Editable Text Areas - Every piece of text displayed on the site has a 'text area' associated with it. Since it is a 'text area' and not a 'text field', you can enter 'html' into that area which may be used to improve search engine effectiveness. 
  
• Search Engine Friendly URLs - The software uses 'mod-rewrite' on the server to display our site's URLs in a .html format rather than a .php format. It does this through the SEO Addon, included with our Enterprise Editions. 
  
• Included:  GDLibrary  - converts customers' uploaded images to a smaller physical size, thereby condensing the size of the image so that each image uses less disk space and pages will load faster.
  
• Included: IonCube or Zend Optimizer - boosts the speed of PHP scripts and code.

The software has the foundational capability to allow each customer user to add inventory items for sale and manage those items with sales features that enhance visibility. It is designed as a subscription and add-on feature revenue model.  However, it has required significant modification to convert it from the original single-type user to our model of Private Collector, Business, and Artist user.  Each user requires different pricing and feature options.  In addition, we must modify the payment method from one used in an auction environment (like eBay) to a more direct pay for subscription model as we are not handling the cashiering for our users purchase activity.  We have implemented an SSL certificate which is required when using this particular payment structure.  All major credit cards (except American Express) will be accepted at launch.
 
The software has robust search capability, however, its auction-type category layout was insufficient for our business model.  A significant amount of time and money has gone into modifying the search to its first level of improvement and enhancements will continue even after launch. At launch users will be able to search by category and using “power search” they can search by one or a combination of: category, keyword, price range, artist name, dimensions, and location.  The keyword search will read all titles and descriptions and includes matching by whole words, partial word, and by item number. Additional variables can and will be added in after-launch enhancement plans.
 
Category options include Art, Designer Décor, Antiques, Items Wanted and Will Trade options. The site can hold virtually an unlimited number of items for sale.