What do you think about this? (Knoxville, Sevierville: houses, buy, living)

[I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA]

I'd like to know what you think about this. My husband and I want to move to the Knoxville area and open a photo gallery and sell pictures of the Smokey Mountains and surrounding areas like the Blue Ridge Parkway, the waterfalls and other things. Do you think this would go over? Where do you think would be the best place to do this or is it even a good idea? Thanks for any suggestions.

[amyevansmom]

Check out Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville. It's all over the place. Not to discourage you, but if you can find a different niche, that's where to be. And it's Smoky Mountains...no "e".

[I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA]

Originally Posted by amyevansmom

Check out Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville. It's all over the place. Not to discourage you, but if you can find a different niche, that's where to be. And it's Smoky Mountains...no "e".

Ok got any suggestions???

[JMT]

Something like that might be ok in the tourist trap nightmare known as Sevierville / Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg. As amyevansmom pointed out, there are already stores like that in that area, and that makes sense because when tourists come to the mountains, they want to take souvenirs of the mountains back home with them to Indiana or Florida or some other flat place. So if those other stores are able to make money, I would think that you could, too. I bet with all the cabins being built in the mountains around Sevier County, people will buy what you're selling to decorate their cabins.

I don't think a store like that would do well in Knoxville since Knoxville is NOT a touristy town, and the local people don't generally pay someone else to take a picture of the mountains that are in their own back yard. At least I've never seen anything like that in anyone's home around here.

But I could be wrong. Maybe something like that in West Town Mall would do well.

[I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA]

Ok, so if that what we want to, would you suggest we live closer to the Sevierville, Pigeon Forge area?

[JMT]

Originally Posted by I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA

Ok, so if that what we want to, would you suggest we live closer to the Sevierville, Pigeon Forge area?

Well, I don't particularly care for long commutes, so I guess living closer to Sevierville et al would be better.

I had a friend once who used to have an art gallery in Gatlinburg. She lived in a house in Gatlinburg (it shocked me to see real houses in Gatlinburg) and walked to her art gallery. I thought that was a nice life--live and work right there in the mountains without having to worry about the traffic.

[hiknapster]

Waving to my friend I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA!

Yep. You would definitely have to do that in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. This is our mountains, and we already have tons of pictures. The tourists will buy that, though.

Don't live over there. Try Strawberry Plains, Kodak, or Seymour.

[TedTAce]

I would also take into account the fact there are tons of stock photos of the mountains online. Food for thought.

[Darbowmach1]

Have you thought about having tourists in the picture with the mountain views? We got sucked into this idea at Las Vegas -sharks at Mandalay Bay. For $25-35 bucks we got a cool frame with a nice pic of us with the sharks in the background. I know its cheesy graphics but tourists will eat it up!! You could of course have the nice prints and frames avail to puchase....... Good luck!

[john t]

There have been many tourist oriented photography shops come and go in and around Knoxville and the smokies. There's just too much competition, plus you can get a large cheap print of mountains/waterfalls at walmart(most people don't know the difference anyway). Last fall I talked with two wonderful smokies/nature photographers who had resorted to trying to sell their work at a fleamarket. It was kind of sad to see nice framed photos presented in professional displays sitting next to people selling socks and twinkies.