A big thank you to all the artists, sponsors, friends and family who have made this Magnitude 9 Exhibition happen -your support and advice has been amazing over the last 4 weeks prior, and during the 1 week exhibition period of 11~15 May 2011.
I thought that I would write a "How to organise an art exhibition in Sydney" as we went through so many hurdles finding our way through to get to the final week as first timers in such things. We believe that we came out on top and hope this advice can help others in the future.
Securing your Venue & naming your exhibition:
We were lucky that there was a week slot available with Mils Gallery, an emerging artists space for a reasonable price. 4 weeks was what we worked with due to the urgency of the disaster relief appeal, but actually this was a crazy deadline, starting with only 1 artist (Yann) secured for this group show. Other emerging artists galleries may be also a good place to start, in order to have an affordable venue rate. Once we had a venue, date and a name for the exhibition it was putting forward a stronger case infront of other artists and sponsors to relate to. We contacted the Red Cross and registered with them, they replied back to us within 1 week.
Some places that come to mind:
Mils Gallery / Gaffa Gallery / First Draft / Global Gallery
Starting a Blog:
This website has been invaluable to this exhibition as a face to the general public in finding out what it's all about, and keeping people interested in this project. We have used it for everything. Posts and pages seeking artists, sponsors, media exposure, volunteers, event notices to the artist's profiles and for the artworks online now. At a week to the exhibition we were getting 100+ hits a day by circulation through friends and referring websites. 2000+ total pageviews by the time the exhibition was on during 11~15 May, it was an amazing number to reach and encouraging for us to keep going also. At the close of this fund raiser, 3weeks after the exhibition date we have come to 3200+ total pageviews. Thank you for following this blog and having interest to the cause.
Below are free or affordable website/ blog services :
Blogger / Wordpress / Other People's Pixels
Group show -securing Artists:
We chose to go with a group show to seek a diversity in artworks to appeal to the general public. This actually also helped reach different groups of networks and contacts to get the word out and brought many to the exhibition and events that we organised. This was really important for us and it was really successful.
It took about 2~3 weeks of everyday appealing to different artists whom we found through friends in the photography / design industry and from remembering previous exhibitions that we had been to around Sydney -going through past exhibition listings that fitted our theme of having a Japanese influence. Thank you to Harold, Nick, Michelle, Andrew, Yann, Koichi, Kyoko, Kim & Nicole for donating their artworks, it's so great.
We secured 9 artists in the end, with great talent which was really incredible. We should also note however that this also means chasing 9 incredibly busy individuals to respond to you so that you can organise the artworks, resize files, submit to printing, source mounting, framing, then curating the space, getting them to write their profiles, make a time for them to do their signatures and considering pricing together. 9 times or more! Up to the last minute. Have some time up your sleeve for this process.
Media Exposure:
Exhibition event listing is key to also gaining some credibility from the general public and prospective sponsors. Once you have your artists confirmed I would just go straight to getting the event out into the media. It was actually surprisingly easy to have your event listed on some websites. See our Press Release page for the ones we were able to have listings -these only took a week to be uploaded.
We would have liked to have pushed for articles in local papers, etc but with 4wks to organise the whole show, and only 2wks to go when we had artists secured, it was not possible. If you have time, campaign really hard to get those articles.
Here are some contact details for you, City of Sydney : What's On listing generated the most public interest.
http://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/submit
http://www.tourism.nsw.gov.au/getconnected
http://www.disassociated.com/contact/
http://www.artguide.com.au/contact/
http://art-almanac.com.au/index.php?c=contactus
http://about.artabase.net/user-guides-2/create-a-gallery-profile
http://www.fbiradio.com/contact/contact
http://www.australiandesignreview.com/contact
http://about.artabase.net/user-guides-2/create-a-gallery-profile
http://www.fbiradio.com/contact/contact
http://www.australiandesignreview.com/contact
Exhibition expenses + sponsors:
I frequent exhibition openings weekly. Out and about Sydney, catching up with friends for a drink or two and had not realised what went on in the background, the amount of work, coordinating and money that was involved! We were very lucky to find generous sponsors who resonated with the cause and were able to provide their services and products.
For us it included the printing of artworks which was amazing, thanks to Canon Australia & Pixel Perfect Pro Labs. No luck in framing, but a nice couple from Art & Framing Supplies were very helpful and supportive. And the event sponsors really made the opening night and Sunday afternoon tea a success -Peroni & Peter Lehmann Wines for drinks / Zushi Restaurant for sushi / and Planet Cake for the Sunday highlight. I can't imagine the overall cost that we may have incurred without their help, and you need a lot of time to secure sponsors if you are not a charity exhibition.
We prepared a Sponsorship Package document with the Letter of Authority from Australian Red Cross attached, to give them confidence in our project. About Us / Target Audience / Sponsorship Levels / Sponsorship Benefits / Letter of Authority were included in this document. Thanks Austin, Kaori, Dini & Pablo for the tips! We emailed many and essentially had a 1/20 success rate for a response. Not a lot. And for charity. Personal phone calls and knowing a contact is likely to be the more successful strategy but we were limited as we tried to sustain our full-time day jobs and could not make these calls during work hours.
Most large companies require 4~6weeks to just respond to you, after filling out a 20+minute survey application form where you only receive an automated message back. And a bit later, declined. You could try still, Fosters Group covers most beverages. At one point we talked to Corkscrew Cellars in Darlinghurst which don't sponsor events, but provide very affordable options -if we bought a case of wine, they would provide free delivery and about $5 per a dozen wine glasses for hire which they will wash also. This was looking like the best option until luckily our sponsor came through.
Advice would be to call prospective sponsors, find a name, specific email and target them how their involvement would benefit them also. It is interesting that once you have 1 name as a sponsor, especially if it has a reliable brand associated, others are easier to follow. Local places may be more interested to support, and more importantly would give you feedback much faster obviously.
Invitation & Social Media:
We were very lucky to have a Graphic Designer as a friend to do the Invitation Poster which really set the scene. Thanks Gosia! The invitation design is really beautiful and professional also, and we emailed this to all the artists, sponsors, friends and family we knew. This invitation was very successful in catching everyone's eye and generating an interest and buzz about the exhibition.
With such little time to organise the event and secure sponsors, we released these invitations 1.5weeks before the Opening Night. We opted to only go with Social Media as a source for marketing and get the word out about the events. Emails of course. And facebook was a phenomenal portal. 100 attending rsvp on our facebook event was quite reassuring. With good advice from our friends at Woosa Media, we created the event and shared our blog posts on facebook regularly. All this time we had also been updating the blog daily with new information and news. Other outlets we didn't get around to upload but would have been good was Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn.
Pre-Exhibition & Event help:
So to the final week of printing, mounting and framing the artworks. This was exhausting! Have helpers, we didn't until the night before and we were rather depressed at one point mounting and windex-ing 50+ frames...! But it all came together with the help of friends, it was a lot to do -labels / taping / framing / stringing / hanging... Many thanks to Marysia, Alice, Gautam, Keiko, Michelle, Andrew and Adriano.
Events couldn't have been so smooth sailing without all our friends who came to help out, and bring their friends and colleagues to the event also. It ended up being a 100+ audience on the Opening Night and almost 80 on the Sunday event. Thanks to Alice, Dini, Kitty, Anna, Una, Alex, Marysia & Mum!
Events for Exhibitions:
We had some good advice while we were organising the exhibition, that "people don't come, unless there is an event". This was key to our exhibition also, and every artist should know this. We had an amazing turnout on the 2 events we organised, however on the other days, we were lucky to have 1 or 2 passer-bys drop in momentarily every 2~3hrs on the weekdays, and maybe every 1~2hrs on the Saturday. Quite a contrast when it is filled by 60~100 people at the events!
During the exhibition, our events were:
Opening Drinks Night / Japanese Tea & Cake Day with origami + calligraphy workshop
We wanted to accommodate 2 different groups. The young professionals after work on a Wednesday night, and families with small children on the Sunday afternoon tea. These were very successful.
We also considered preparing other events such as Artist's Talk / Film Screening / Live Music but could not handle organising these steps further at such short notice. We encourage any artists to make as many events possible to appeal to the general public.
What we still need to figure out is how to price and market the artworks for a successful "art exhibition" with sales. This is really hard. Our silent auction items which were very large, at A2 or A1 framed and were quite successful. We also sold some, but not all of the A3 format standard artworks. However it generated a lot of interest and made the auction items stand out.
In total, around 27 / 52 artworks were sold from this exhibition to the general public. Having never organised an exhibition before, apparently this is quite successful -which makes me realise that perhaps most art exhibitions only sell 30~50% of its show? Goodness! Everyone who bought the artworks really liked the artwork itself and so we felt very happy with this, and that it would go towards a cause that we all felt strongly for.
To also find and bring the audience who like to buy art is something we need to figure out, and would love advice on. We have been told that some auction items are presented to prospective buyers prior to the exhibition and sizing and selections are made on their show of interest. Private viewings prior to the Opening night are organised also with larger industry business people for some exhibitions apparently. The workings of the art world is still a mystery.
Thank you to everyone:
I hope that by passing on our experience will also help the creative talents out there who are organising their exhibitions. Thank you to mum & dad, all my friends, extended family and colleagues who gave their advice, you have been so supportive!
Overall it has been an amazing journey. Yann and I have grown together from this experience also, and through all the steps we are very humbled to have had people who believed in our vision and came to support the cause.
It has been a lot of work involved, however all worthwhile as we think of the people who have been affected. Personally, I think of Omoe, Iwate the fishing village that I visited for one summer as a child and is a precious part of me -we miss you.
Cheers, Naoko
Co-Organiser of Magnitude 9 Exhibition
Co-Organiser of Magnitude 9 Exhibition
