Blog: Yes you're paying for that wall
In the past two years we've exhibited at different venues on different terms, many artists will know what we're talking about. I guarantee any artist or photographer whether its on Instagram or Facebook or by email, has had some gallery contact them stating they're huge fans of your work or they think your artwork will fit perfectly in their gallery, for a fee of however much it may be, enabling you to exhibit for a duration of time. Of course you check out reviews and see they are quite mixed, the question is what do you do, pay or pass? The usual ramblings are the gallery do little or no promotion which is sometimes true, or artists who have exhibited there haven't had a great windfall of sales, do not let this put you off! The first question is does the gallery do any of the promotion? Does it have major footfall? Is it on a high street? If not your going to rely sheerly on promotion, which you will have to do yourself. There are plenty of free outlets you can use to share and spread the word of your exhibition, in turn creating more of a following and generating sales of your artwork. With our Brick Lane exhibition we had over one hundred visitors on opening night sheerly from utilising different avenues of free promotion. Other galleries or spaces offer you the option of being able to hold an exhibition with you just paying a percentage of the commission you make in sales after it is over. This is great if you have financial restraints or you just want the biggest profit margins from your artwork.
Having done both of these scenarios we can honestly say both can be very beneficial however it is going to be solely down to how well you can market and advertise your exhibition. Here's a few things we did to generate footfall and sales without spending a penny on marketing (look out for an in-depth podcast coming next week on the best apps to create banners/imagery and how to effectively promote your exhibition online)
Imagery
As soon as you have the date of the exhibition start working on imagery to use in the marketing of your event. There are so many free apps you can use to create cover images for Facebook & Twitter or even if its a digital poster using an image or text.
Eventbrite
This is where we initially started as many people check Eventbrite to see what is going on within their given field of interest or within a specific city. Whats great is you can tie this event across your social media platforms and start to build a database of potential customers of those who show interest in your event
Despite the recent scandals Facebook is still the most used platform across social media therefore a great place to let everyone know. First thing we'd recommend is to upload those visuals you've created, that striking imagery is key to garner attention for your exhibition.
Creating an event on Facebook is a great way to get your exhibition seen even if you already have your Eventbrite set up, invite your friends, ask them to share and spread the word it needs to be visible. Don't be disheartened if you don't receive many confirmations the purpose is to get the event visible. From experience we’ve had visitors who saw our event on social media but did not confirm attendance prior, so it is worth doing.
From as simple as changing your display picture and cover image, follow the pattern you have used with Facebook use your imagery.
Pin your exhibition on twitter, this well be the first thing people see when visiting your page. Use those hashtags #
Another great idea is to directly tweet organisations and businesses within the area of the exhibition or anyone for that matter who you think would be interested in viewing and buying your work
Again those banners you've created or even imagery of your work with text over, striking visuals can turn from a swipe past your image to a click onto your page. Mirroring twitter don't forget to use your hashtags with twitter.
