Why not open your studio for an exhibition of your art?

No matter how big your studio is or indeed your home is, organising your own event can be an easy and affordable way do some artist marketing to your friends, clients and collectors.

This is a great article filled with great marketing tips and important things to consider when holding your own open studio event; read it in full and follow the links.

Set the exhibition date/s:
Set in stone a date and a time for the opening night, and a schedule of days and opening hours for the remainder of the weekend or the following week.

This information should be presented in all promotional & marketing material and at the exhibition itself so people know when they can visit if they can’t make opening night.

Define the exhibition & work spaces:
For any form of Artists marketing, professional presentation is often the key. HOWEVER, don’t clean up your entire studio. People are always fascinated to see where the artist works and it may be this exact reason they are coming. It’s a selling point, so define your work area separately from the bulk of your exhibition space if you can.

• The Exhibition Space: You should unclutter the area that is best suited to displaying the bulk of your art work, generally the largest most open space is the best as it is here you may make your artist’s speech and people can gather. If you don’t have a hanging system, you can mount artworks on easels, or on tables leaning against the wall, with a blob of putting underneath to stop then sliding forward.
   
• The Work Space: Leave this area just as it looks when creating your artwork. If need-be you can ‘stage’ an example area. Leaving part of your studio messy is fine, materials at-the-ready and works in progress will all give an indication of the time and methods an artwork requires and therefore will instill a greater sense of value.

Artists Marketing - Point Of Sale Materials:
Be sure to read: Artists POS tips for many great ideas. POS materials is a term that represents all the promotional materials and promotional methods used onsite. Good POS materials can really help you make the most of your event and there are so many great ways, again be sure to read: Artists POS tips. The absolute minimum though; Artists Business cards.

• Add to your art mailing list / contacts list:
  Be sure to read: Building a Contacts List for far more detail on collecting compiling and using mailing lists. Basically though, to collect names & addresses for your mailing list, simply create a mailing list template, print several copies and mount it on a clipboard with a pen tied to it. Be sure to instruct Your Little Helpers to encourage visitors to leave their details.
  
  Mailing Lists are a crucial aspect to marketing yourself, again, be sure to read Building a Contacts List for a lot more information, tips and tricks.
   
• Additional Exhibition Media:
  Don’t forget to use a television, computer, photo album or projector slide show. Any of these will allow you to use a relatively small space to show your audience further examples of your artwork or photos of you at work perhaps.
  
  Showing a short video, maximum 8minutes or so, also helps to make the evening more entertaining. A video in particular will enable you to convey a lot of specific information about yourself and your art to a captured audience.
   
• Artist Statement and Artist CV:
  Provide your Artist Statement and Artist CV somewhere visible for people to have a look at and take a copy if they want. Your Little Helpers should ensure that all artworks sold are accompanied by your Statement and CV.
   
• Art Price List;
  If you are intending to sell some of the work you are exhibiting have each art work numbered and listed along with the price. Also provide brief information on methods of payment. A master copy should be with one of Your Little Helpers.
   
• Door sign or A-Frame sign:
  Depending on the location of your studio or home, position a sign on the door or an A-Frame out the front, ensure it provides all the necessary information for your open studio exhibition. Place it out well in advance; as soon as you have confirmed the dates/times. On opening night if you are in a high traffic area, mount a spotlight outside, colored lights, flags or balloons to tell the locals “tonight is the night!”.
   
• Artist Marketing - Artist's Business Cards:
  Really the very minimum you should have if you can't afford any other promotional material. See the Article: Artist Business Cards.

Provide a feedback / suggestion box:
A particularly good idea if you are new to exhibiting or selling your art. Feedback is always helpful and this method is one where people can give you constructive criticism anonymously or praise you as well. Be sure to instruct Your Little Helpers to encourage visitors to leave good or bad feedback.

Create an exhibition ambience:
You want to set an ambience and give your exhibition a feel that matches your artwork perhaps, or a basic ambience that will make guests feel more comfortable entering your exhibition and hanging around to view the artworks.

• Music:
  For opening night any music that suits you or your customers taste is generally fine. For the remainder of the exhibition days though, it is best to have non-invasive background music on so that random visitors feel comfortable to walk in and talk openly amongst themselves without necessarily being overheard by you. People spend less time in a dead quiet exhibition especially if they are the only person.
   
• Lighting:
  In a studio, whatever lighting you have may just have to do. For opening night though, it is important at least initially to have all lights on so people can adequately view your artwork… however as the evening progresses you should consider turning some lights off or dimmed them down. A good tip is to use a few portable spotlights that can later be sat behind a plant or simply switched off.
   
• Drinks:
  The basics are beer, wine and an non-alcoholic choice, generally orange juice, if children are attending; lemonade too. Estimate the number of guests and assume that most will have one drink minimum, but many will also have three. People tend to drink more if they can see that plenty more drinks are available, otherwise most will subconsciously keep to their fair share. If your budget is tight keep only a small number of drinks out at any one time and have spares out the back. Alternatively, have drinks out until a particular time only have Santa’s Little Helper, put them away when the speeches start.
  
  If you are expecting a lot of guests and are unsure about the amount of liquor you’ll need, more is better than not enough, speak to your local liquor store, often they be happy to will credit you back if you return unopened and undamaged cartons.
   
• Food:
  If you are providing alcohol you really must provide some form of food. You could simply opt for a few bowls of crackers and dips or heated savory items like vegetarian spring rolls. Avoid meat and dairy, not only can you risk food poisoning with such foods remaining out all night in a crowd, studies have found that vegan snacks at events are the most popular in that they generally please the greatest audience percentage. Happy guests may mean more sales and presenting guests with dead animal to eat is not the most positive thing you could do for your art career!

Artists Speech:
You don’t have to give a personal speech if you prefer not to, but someone should say a few words. See: Artists Exhibition Speech Tips for more detail. As a minimum ask someone (in advance) to welcome everyone to the evening, they may lilt mention how long they’ve known you, a little about you or your art making, and then introduce you to explain a little more about this particular body of work or the process involved in your art making… all you need to do is get up smile and say “Thankyou, I appreciate you all coming tonight.” If you are more confident, then See: Artists Exhibition Speech Tips for tips on how to make your artists speech perfect.

Your Little Helpers:
Ask two friends to help you on opening night. Their job is to prepare the bar area, welcome guests, during the evening engage guests in brief conversation to encourage them to join your mailing list or leave feedback and ask them if they are interested in purchasing. They can also disseminate information such as hand out copies of you artist CV, price list, or promotional material. Their most important role of all however is facilitating sales.

Read: Self Exhibition Guide – Your Little Helpers for more detail on all these jobs.

Other important things:
When holding an event, there are many other little things to consider or worry about if you really want to, we’ve listed just a few here. read the article Your Little Helper as it explains a lot more. 

• Entry, Exit & Chillout:
  Depending on the number of people think about where people will be entering the exhibition it needs to remain clear at all times. You should only have one entry, but multiple exits is okay. If you have a garden area, balcony area or similar, provide access to it as a chill out area, on opening night your exhibition may become hot and stuffy and it is better to have people chill out onsite than go outside and leave for the evening.
   
• Toilet Facilities:
  Make sure there is spare toilet paper, a toilet brush and air freshener, handsoap and two clean hand towels. If the only available toilet is very close to the exhibition space try to partition off the entry to it and/or place a radio turned on in the bathroom. When people need to ‘go’. If they don’t feel comfortable to go in your only facility people will indeed leave the exhibition and may not return.
   
• Trash:
  At an open studio exhibition its expected people will dispose of their own trash so don’t be fussy use several cardboard boxes with plastic bin liners. Label them ‘TRASH’ and ‘BOTTLES’. If you are expecting a crowd have several of these so people can reach them if they can’t get through the crowd to the bar area.

Organising your own open studio art exhibition really is a 'selling point' and a great form of self marketing to build your career as an artist. Don't stress about it though, consider it a ‘party’ a ‘gathering’. It can be as simple or formal as you want.