How to organize an exhibition of paintings for a beginner. Imagine several possible situations

Long gone are the days when an exhibition could be organized only in galleries and museums. Today's artists often choose increasingly unusual venues for presentation. You can organize your exhibition even in the state library, although for the first time it is better to choose more suitable options for this - private galleries or art spaces. It can be educational institutions, institutes, co-working spaces or free-use premises specially designated for exhibition purposes - for example, in the Center contemporary art WINZAVOD.

The average rental price per day starts at 60,000 rubles. An exhibition at WINZAVOD or Strelka will cost from 300,000 rubles per day. Yes, such prices can scare a novice artist, but do not forget that on some sites it is quite possible to exhibit on a barter basis. The main thing is to be able to competently negotiate, think over the composition of the exhibition and choose guests. In this case, you promote the platform, and the platform promotes you.

materials

A full-fledged exhibition can be organized already with 15 canvases. Much, of course, depends on the exhibition space: when placing works in each particular hall, it is necessary to take into account its size and layout features. If your work is small, you should display more paintings. It is impossible to unambiguously answer the question of how long it will take to create them. It all depends on individual characteristics artist, . Remember that a quality exhibition is always characterized by a well-traced theme that ties together disparate paintings and instills the feeling that they are all part of a single whole.

How to attract viewers to the exhibition

To attract visitors, use all means: draw posters, flyers and brochures, distribute them where art lovers most often hang out. Make a competent press release and send it to the editors of newspapers, magazines and TV channels.

Social media is everything. Be sure to post your trade show poster on all social media, making sure to include key details such as date, time, and location. Ask your friends to repost and do not skimp on paid advertising on social networks. For example, if you organize an event on Facebook and start broadcasting advertising, then each person who subscribes to the event (potentially willing to come) will cost 30-40 rubles.

How many paintings can you sell

When creating an exhibition, of course, it is better for an artist to think in advance about how much he evaluates each of his works. You should not set sky-high goals for yourself, planning to sell all your paintings at the exhibition. That doesn't happen. In addition, the purchase is unlikely to happen at the event itself: most likely a collector who is interested in one (or several) of your paintings will take a pause to think and contact you later.

Evgenia Pak, founder of Art of You creative studio

“Organizing the first exhibition is like building a small business. Once you understand how these processes work, you can move on to founding your own creative startup.”

What to attract besides the paintings themselves

Firstly, an exhibition is not necessarily just paintings. In the background, you can play conceptual music or atmospheric videos broadcast on the wall using a projector. Add sculptures and photographs if you are doing something else besides painting or drawing. Well, all this should be served in the same style, like all advertising about the event.

buffet

By organizing a buffet for guests, you demonstrate your customer focus. Champagne, cocktails and snacks don't have to cost you a fortune: many companies work on a barter basis (for PR). You can also find sponsors - successful businessmen and large companies Now they are happy to invest in charity. It is important, however, to take into account the fact that some venues do not always agree to the drinking of alcohol at the event. This nuance must be discussed in advance in order to avoid waste and all sorts of misunderstandings. depending on the catering company organizing it and the composition of the dishes: 650-1500 rubles per person.

Do you need a specially trained person

Exhibitions can be organized not only by artists, sculptors or photographers. Nowadays, this format is popular for PR of various start-up projects related to technology or production. Another fashion trend that we are currently launching at Art of You is a co-brand. Art collaborations at the intersection of art and business are fresh and interesting. For example, one well-known bank implemented a project to create payment cards depicting paintings by a talented artist. Renowned calligrapher Pokras Lampas painted a street art version of the Fendi logo on the roof of their Rome office. Such promotions draw attention to both the brand and the artist.

Do I need to hire a specialist to work on the exhibition? Probably, it will not be superfluous if you have funds and do not have time to independently develop the concept of the event, search for an area, negotiate, draw up contracts, budget planning, send out information materials and other activities. The salary level of such a specialist varies between 45,000 and 80,000 rubles per month.

The exhibition is really a sea of possibilities:

establishing contacts with new clients;
maintaining relationships with old clients;
industry research;
customer research;
study of competitors;
large-scale presentation of the company's products;
the possibility of running a new product;
formation / maintenance of the company's image;
assessment of the company's personnel;
selection of new staff.

An exhibition is an opportunity to simultaneously play on large numbers marketing tools: telemarketing, advertisements, direct mail, billboards, presentations, tastings, competitions, celebrations, research, conferences, PR, etc.

To use the listed opportunities and marketing tools, careful preparation, organization and training of personnel are necessary. In reality, the idea of most newcomers and not a small part of the regulars taking part in exhibitions sounds something like this: “Rent a place, set up a stand, prepare materials, bring and arrange products, see people, show yourself.” The line of thought is correct, of course, but thoroughness and depth can hardly be expected with such an approach to understanding the work at the exhibition and its preparation. And from year to year, newcomers and experienced exhibitors step on the same rake, scold the exhibition "what the world stands on."

In this article, we propose to consider the most common mistakes and see how their prevention will open the way to using the variety of opportunities and tools of the exhibition. And most importantly - to understanding, feeling and getting the result at the end.

Mistake #1– “The idea of the exhibition only as a work at the exposition”

As a rule, the idea of the exhibition is the exhibition itself. Actually there is preparatory stage We have already discussed its importance. Also exists The final stage– work after the exhibition. All three stages are necessary to get the result: in the form of the number of orders from new customers, expansion of orders from old customers, improved or new products, adjustment or leveling. weaknesses company, increasing the percentage of company awareness, etc. Each of the stages is a training ground for the preparation of the next stage. The first allows you to foresee everything and hold an exhibition on good level. The exhibition itself provides valuable contacts and marketing information that needs to be processed and brought to "readiness". Work after the exhibition ultimately allows you to evaluate the results achieved, decide on the company's further participation in exhibitions, and also think about how to correct the mistakes made in the future.

Unfortunately, in most cases the first and last stages are in a reduced form or are practically absent. Naturally, without pre-training and subsequent analysis, the work at the exhibition does not fundamentally change much from year to year. Accordingly, about tangible, and even more so high results With this approach, there is no need to speak.

What are the main steps you need to take in order for these failed stages to become full-fledged and work for you.

Preparing for the exhibition - the main steps

Exhibition selection.
Setting goals for the exhibition.
Analysis before the opening of the exhibition.
Budget planning.
Definition target audience.
Event planning, marketing tools at the exhibition.
Exposition preparation.
Selection of exhibits.
Advertising planning.
Preparation of information and advertising and pos-materials.
Planning and coordinating the work of the company's personnel.
Selection of personnel for work at the exhibition.
Training.
Informing real and potential customers about the exhibition and your participation in it.

If the preparation for the exhibition and the exhibition itself were “on the level”, then it is all the more insulting to fail the “work after the exhibition”. Although everyone is tired and madly want to relax. It is necessary to arrange a “debriefing”, discuss all the successes and mistakes, thank everyone for their work at the exhibition, note the contribution of each employee, reward financial feats for feats of arms and motivate them to “work after the exhibition”.

Work after the exhibition - the main steps

Summing up the immediate results of the exhibition.
Distribution of the received information to the relevant departments.
Work with "hot" and "warm" clients. A reminder of yourself to "cool" customers.
Replenishment of the database of potential customers.
Processing and analysis of research data.
Evaluation of the effectiveness of participation in the exhibition.
Deciding to participate in this exhibition in the future.
Once again, we want to emphasize that this is a list of the main steps, almost each of them can be described in as much detail as the steps themselves.

Mistake #2– “The coincidence of the name of the exhibition and the profile of your company is not a guarantee optimal choice Exhibitions"

The choice of a particular exhibition, as well as the choice of an expensive purchase, should be balanced and deliberate. The material and organizational costs are too high to come to the exhibition and stay with nothing. How?

Imagine several possible situations:

A. You have decided to take part in the exhibition, but in practice it turned out that the exhibition you have chosen is of third-rate importance in your industry, with a small number of exhibitors and sluggish attendance. You clearly and competently fulfill the allotted five days. But the total number of contacts, and even more so the number of useful contacts, does not make you want to spend so much time, money and nerves in the future.

Q. You expected to find customers at the exhibition, and all the preparation was based on them, and as a result, the stand was almost demolished by end users who flooded the exhibition and demanded your products at reduced prices. As a result, you did not manage to work properly with anyone, nor did your end users profit from you (you only had samples and gift-presentation sets for customers).

S. You decided to outshine everyone and invested a lot of money in rent and a large unusual stand so that it could be seen from everywhere and everyone aspired to it. In practice, it turned out that you were the only big stand, and really attracted attention, the stand was studied, examined, but did not come closer than a cannon shot. Or the opposite situation is possible, when a small stand is lost among the island stands of other companies.

How to avoid it?

1. Make a list of exhibitions, choose those that are relevant to you thematically and in scale.

So, if a company is engaged in the production and distribution of stationery only in its region, then it hardly makes sense for it to participate in republican and even more so in international exhibitions, unlike large manufacturers, from companies with an extensive regional network, or firms that have decided to enter the market of the CIS countries.

2. Make a list of criteria by which you will choose an exhibition.

These criteria can be:

exhibition format (b2b, b2c);
the number of exhibitors, their composition, the presence of competitors, the dynamics of these parameters over several years (positive, negative);
the number of visitors, their composition, the dynamics of these parameters over several years (positive, negative);
the presence of target customers, the dynamics of target customers is growing or falling from year to year;
which exhibitions are closer to your schedule in terms of production process, budget receipts; release of a pilot batch of a new product that you want to test at the exhibition;
the ratio of large and medium-sized companies (large and small stands). The optimal ratio is 30% to 70%, then both of them will be able to show themselves;
hitting the exhibition on holidays (not in vain in summer period exhibitions are practically not held), etc.

For those who have participated in the exhibition before, it is also important to track the dynamics of their participation in the exhibition over several years (positive, negative, what is the reason, is there any point in working at this exhibition further).

3. Think about what is important for you to do, achieve, what activities and techniques you would like to use at the exhibition. Which of the exhibitions, which of the plans allows you to do.

4. Compare exhibitions with each other.

To get complete information, it is better to combine several sources of information: the Internet, specialized magazines, exhibition websites, exhibition organizing committees, customers, competitors, partners, etc. Such a preliminary analysis of exhibitions is important for both newcomers and regulars of exhibitions, since everything changes, including exhibitions (in terms of the composition of participants, visitors, etc.). And then you have to refuse to participate in the exhibition or come up with new marketing moves.

Mistake #3"Lack of clear, specific, measurable goals of work at the exhibition"

As a rule, when asked about the goals of the company at the exhibition, you can get the following answers: “Because there are competitors here”, “To maintain the image”, “If we do not participate in the exhibition, then competitors and customers will think that we have problems”, “Process as many clients as possible”, “Spy”, etc.

Clear, measurable goals give the company the following opportunities:

There are four main directions of the company's goals at the exhibition:

finding new customers and strengthening relationships with old customers;
building or maintaining an image;
marketing intelligence;
search and attraction of new partners.

It is best if the company pays attention to each of these goals, otherwise you can at least miss out on good opportunities.

Let's imagine that a company staked on maintaining its image (a very interesting, non-standard, attractive stand), but at the same time was not ready for the flood of potential customers. Why was so much money spent? What do customers get from this stand? Of course, they will remember the name, but the desire to work with this company will noticeably decrease.

In addition to being clear and measurable, goals must be realistic. So, for example, it would be naive to expect that the company at the exhibition will be able to work with all visitors of the exhibition (30,000). The figure ten times less does not detract from naivety. Moreover, not all of them are customers, and even more so your target customers.

So you can consider each direction of setting the company's goals at the exhibition. Suffice it to recall what opportunities the exhibition opens up for conducting various kinds of marketing research, how much they cost, and how much valuable information they contain (with proper setting of the research goal, its preparation, conduct and processing).

Mistake #4"10 charming long-legged girls parading around the exhibition and success is guaranteed."

Cute, charming, decorates the exhibition - this is undeniable. Does it affect attraction - that's the question. They attract attention, no doubt. As a rule, they cannot tell anything intelligible about a product or service. The attention and interest of the client goes out. It's good if they at least give out informational and promotional materials, at least some benefit.

So, we are talking on the selection of marketing tools. A variety of shows attract attention, entertain, provide an opportunity to relax or unwind, relax with your “eye”, cheer up, but practically do not affect the business component of communication at the exhibition.

The selected marketing tools must meet the following parameters:

work for the purpose of the company participating in the exhibition;
be focused on the target audience of the company (separate tools at least at the level of b2b, b2c);
be adequate in terms of cost/benefit ratio;
fit together, complement each other, not duplicate.
A big plus in attracting customers will be the use of marketing tools "before" and "during" the exhibition. If the selected tools meet the requirements listed above, this will ensure a quantitative, qualitative and cost-effective customer acquisition.

Mistake #5"Stand around the head."

The head is the one (those) who thought out the exhibition from the goals and strategies to achieve them to the smallest detail. The stand itself is an "elevator", attracting attention, informing, with a certain bandwidth.

The throughput of the stand directly depends on its size. 30% of the stand, as a rule, is occupied by its exposition. 70% stays with employees. One employee needs an area of at least 1.5-2 square meters so that he can work calmly at the stand without dropping the information racks, without disturbing others and without experiencing psychological discomfort. Accordingly, a stand for 4 employees should be at least 13 square meters in area. The ability to increase the size of the booth depends on the budget of the company. If the capacity of the booth calculated by you does not suit you in terms of the predicted return, and the budget is strictly limited, then it is better to use other methods to attract customers.

Often the struggle of competitors in the field of "whose booth is cooler" becomes an end in itself. Customers consciously or unconsciously understand, looking at the stand, for whom it is (customers or competitors and loved ones). The question is, what warms more customers? The answer is obvious. Moreover, playing the “king of the hill” takes a lot of time, effort, energy from working with clients, and in the absence of proper staff training, it causes a false sense of superiority.

For example, a company that includes two fundamentally different areas worked at the exhibition at different stands. What was the surprise of the management when the results in terms of the number of visitors turned out to be higher at a stand that was more modest in size and pretentious in design. The company's marketers got the impression that customers were "afraid" to enter the second booth, if they did, they waited for an approving look from employees confirming "Yes, we are waiting for you, we are glad to see you."

This living story shows that when choosing a stand, it is necessary, among other things, to focus on your target audience so as not to lose it, frighten it or go completely unnoticed.

Often experienced exhibitors argue where it is better to place a stand. The "correct" answers are the entrance and the center. In fact, if you imagine yourself in the place of an exhibition visitor, it becomes clear that, most likely, you will walk around the entire exhibition. That is, you can place the stand almost anywhere. But some limitations must be taken into account. Like any person, you will not want to go where there is a dead end, as this is the absence of a path, a return (repetition), a waste of time. It is better not to place the stand near catering outlets, so that the queue does not block the approaches to the stand. So that there are no unexpected problems with the re-registration of space, installation of a stand, loss usable area- study the plan of the pavilion so that the pillars, columns, ceilings do not end up on your territory.

A very important point for bandwidth booth, and even more so attracting targeted customers is the organization of the space.

The company, which is focused on wholesale buyers, has actively preliminary work to attract visitors. And end users poured onto the stand. There is only one entrance to the stand (it is also the exit). Pandemonium. It turned out to be impossible to work at the booth with target customers.

It is important to consider: who is the target client; if it is important for you to show distributors that consumers' interest in your products is high, then you need to allocate work areas (negotiation, "sales"); whether you need a meeting area or you have enough work at the stand.

Mistake #6“We sat and smoked, and so the exhibition passed.”

New employee impression of the exhibition: "Stop the earth, I'll get off."

The main problem is that employees are thrown like kittens into an ice hole, without the distribution of functionality, responsibility and authority, and without prior preparation for their execution. As a result, the employees manage their own time, and they themselves come up with activities that mostly do not correspond to the goals of the exhibition.

There are 10 typical, often repeated mistakes of employees at the exhibition. All of them show the client a lack of interest and respect for him.

10 "not" or bad manners at the exhibition

Don't sit!
Don't read!
Do not smoke!
Do not eat or drink at the exhibition!
Don't chew!
Don't ignore potential customers!
Don't talk on the phone!
Don't be like a watchman!
Do not waste advertising literature!
Don't hang out!

Recently, training to prepare employees for work at the exhibition has been very popular. Required minimum in the training of employees: the ability to establish contact, correctly classify customers, identify offers and select appropriate advertising and information materials, be able to conduct presentations, demonstrations, negotiations, manage employee time at the exhibition, Business Etiquette at the exhibition, restoration of working capacity, etc.

Mistake #7"Poor-quality collection of information and its systematization."

Quite often, companies at the exhibition are faced with the following situation: an employee talked to a visitor “in a warm and friendly atmosphere”, and at the exit - no information, no agreements with a potential client (if he is one). This can happen to both newcomer employees and experienced employees (overload/attitude to work).

There are four important points here:

Visitor qualifications: target customers, "customers of customers", competitors, partners, media, etc. This is an opportunity: to understand "who is who", "to speak the language of the needs, interests" of the visitor, to optimize the distribution of time and information and advertising materials, the minimum protection from competitors.
Collection of information from visitors to the stand, primarily from potential customers, in required amount. At the very least, exchange of business cards. It is good if the company develops a small questionnaire for the exhibition, including a passport and the needs of the visitor. On the reverse side of the questionnaire, employee notes can be provided: questions, objections, degree of “readiness”, statements about the company, about competitors. If the flow of visitors at the stand makes it possible to make appropriate notes, then the account managers and the company's marketer will receive valuable information for further work.
Providing information about the company, its products, offers, novelties interesting and sufficient for the visitor (depending on qualifications).
Systematization of the received information. There is already a gradation, these are the grounds on which the qualification of visitors at the stand is carried out. The main thing is to store them not in one big pile, but in groups. Each group has its own color of felt-tip pen or its own box, etc.

Mistake #8“Business cards and promotional materials run out when the most important clients arrive or on the 3rd-4th day of the exhibition.”

Here, the correct calculation, multiplied by experience, will help. In the opinion of permanent exhibitors, the initially calculated number of business cards should be increased by 5 times, and informational materials by 3 times. Further in the course is the qualification of visitors, the competent distribution of company materials and simple vigilance. There are really a lot of so-called "vacuum cleaners" sweeping away materials at exhibitions.

Mistake #9"Finally, it's all over, the information in the archive ...".

Unfortunately, often the information collected by overwork is left without proper attention after the exhibition. If the systematization of the information received did not occur and everything was dumped into a big heap, then hardly anyone will be enthusiastic about its analysis. Everyone is tired, clients are on their phones, a lot of cases have accumulated during the absence from the office. And if the exhibition was “satisfactory”, then this bunch is also painful to look at, and according to the employees there is nothing to “catch” there.

After the exhibition, it is necessary to sum up the intermediate result: the total number of visitors at the stand, by groups of visitors, how many potential customers are in what degree of readiness for cooperation, plan work with them and forward to the prosperity of the company and its employees.

The first candidates for "cleansing", as a rule, are questionnaires. There are many of them, there are many cases, the turnover is stuck, the processing and analysis of the results of the studies carried out on the side, "enough of the general idea." The question is, how to derive correlations from this general idea, draw reliable conclusions and correct the company's behavior in the market?

Still very important point, in hot pursuit to analyze the work at the exhibition in order to better understand what to pay closer attention to when preparing and holding in the future.

Mistake #10"Without analysis of the effectiveness of participation in the exhibition ahead for a new one."

It is clear that, depending on the turnover, produced and / or sold products (services) of the company, the evaluation of efficiency according to one of the main criteria total amount transactions with clients attracted at the exhibition can last for a whole year. But it is still necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the company's participation in the exhibition. Let on the basis of simple criteria. You know your costs. The most obvious sources of fundraising are, first of all, contracts with clients, expansion of orders of existing clients and studies carried out to the end. Let's go back to the example. Let's say the work after the exhibition brought the company 50 contracts, the size of the average purchase of customers per month is $ 3,000, purchases occur monthly, the output is $ 1,800,000. Plus, expanding orders for old customers, if you were attentive to them at the exhibition and prepared tempting offers for them. Plus the cost of research (from $5,000-30,000 or more), if you ordered them from a provider, multiplied by their number (subject). Plus, less quantifiable, but no less important results are an increase in the percentage of company recognition, timely recording of intelligence information from the exhibition, maintaining the company's image, etc.

So, each of the considered errors, and even more so their combination, block access to the numerous and varied opportunities provided by the exhibition. "Rake dancing" from year to year only leads to the fact that the company loses money, understanding and enthusiasm of the staff about the company's participation in the exhibition.

On the eve of an active exhibition season, we wish you to take the lead, get the maximum benefit and experience, learn something new in the exhibition business.

I constantly write about various needlework and other types of earnings that do not bring large profits. How to start earning more, reach the next level? How to feel like not just a homeworker who painstakingly does work for a small group of friends all day long, but also a creative person in demand who receives expensive orders? One of the simplest and most effective options is to organize an exhibition.

Any entrepreneur is constantly concerned with such issues as advertising, creating a positive image of the company and stimulating sales, both wholesale and retail. Significant financial, human and time resources are required to reach the threshold of efficiency. By organizing an exhibition, you get the opportunity to simultaneously use all of the above marketing tools among a specially assembled target audience of potential customers. That is, at the exhibition you form the image of your company and advertise the product and sell it.

How to organize an exhibition, attract visitors, recoup expenses and make a profit

First of all, we will determine that the exhibitions are different:

For the sake of sales (made, sold, drank). Many cities already have regular handmade exhibitions (handmade - handmade). If you do not have this, then you can negotiate with the city administration, other craftsmen and hold such exhibitions-fairs monthly (or weekly) in a certain place. The entrance is of course free.
For show, that is, a classic exhibition, for example, like. Payment of rent and other expenses from entrance tickets. These events are not cheap and require serious organization, so they are held 1-2 times a year.
"Show yourself." This is usually not a personal exhibition, but participation in a large city, industry or regional exhibition. fast money she won't bring. Its plus is that most of the costs are paid by the state, but in order to get a result, you need to take into account a lot of subtleties, so a separate article will be devoted to this topic.

The organization of the exhibition includes several points, known as the "Rule 4 R":

Exhibition planning.
Attracting visitors.
Staff.
Obtaining and analyzing results.

Exhibition Planning

In order to properly organize an exhibition and ultimately get the maximum result, you first need to decide: for what purposes are we organizing it? The list might look something like this:

Finding Clients – Do you need new clients?
Search for partners - wholesale buyers, suppliers of raw materials, advertising companies, etc.
Looking for hired workers - you intend to expand your business?
Search for like-minded people - people with whom you have common interests, who are concerned about the same problems.
Formation positive image firms.
Brand advertising - did you manage to come up with it?
Recoup the cost of organizing an event and make a profit.

Organization of the exhibition

Organizers. First of all, you need to resolve the issue with the organizers of the exhibition. Will you deal with this alone, will you involve the city or district authorities, or will you find partners? Decide right away who will do what, and financial questions, and if these are not your relatives, then conclude a written contract.

room. The second question is the search for a place. They depend on the size of the planned exhibition, its direction and even the time of year, because in the summer you can do a lot just in the open air.

Now most museums organize various temporary exhibitions, so if you are engaged in folk crafts, you can negotiate with them. Quite a decent exposition can be organized in the lobby of the hotel, in the house of culture or in the new mall where not all areas have been leased yet. In general, now in any city there are enough free premises that are rented, sometimes for shoe sales, sometimes for fur fairs.

Performers. Someone will have to put the room in order, install (and then dismantle) the stands, lay out the exposition and maintain it throughout the exhibition. AT big cities special firms are engaged in this, if you don’t have one in your city or you don’t have money for it, then you will have to do everything on your own, attracting friends and relatives.

Advertising. Now prospectuses, leaflets and booklets will be printed for you by any printing house. Make sure that there is all the necessary information for those who want to find you after the exhibition. Don't splurge, a small bright sheet of basic information is all you need! In addition, you will have to spend money on advertising, which will attract visitors to the exhibition. In about a month, bright ads should appear in city newspapers and on local television. Posters will also need to be hung on the streets. You also need to distribute leaflets in crowded places and advertise on the Internet. Articles and messages on thematic pages, again thematic sites, forums and social networks, as well as mailing lists and contextual advertising work best on the network.

Exposure placement. When creating an exhibition, constantly ask the question: for whom am I doing this? After all, firstly, the exhibition should be interesting for all visitors, that is, for people who are far from what you are doing. After all, satisfied visitors are free advertising for the event. Secondly, it should be such that people want to buy your products. Thirdly, wholesalers and potential partners should be able to quickly get all the information they need, and you should also quickly get information about them. Therefore, the staff must be taught in advance who to say what, what information to provide, and what to ask.

An example of an interesting exhibition

An interesting option to interest visitors is to conduct master classes. Allocate a place for a craftsman who will create some things in front of the eyes of visitors, and at the same time teach everyone who wants some simple tricks.

Don't forget to make a stand for the kids. It doesn't matter what it will be, except for your products - groovy Railway or a cage with parrots, but children should be interested. This is one of good incentives for visitors to tell their friends about your exhibition and advise them to visit it.

How to make money at the exhibition

Sale of entrance tickets. The easiest option, but it will not work if your entire exposure can be covered in a couple of minutes. People need to understand what they are giving their money for.
Selling your products. Make sure that by the beginning of the exhibition you have good stock goods for sale, including inexpensive ones that visitors like to buy as a keepsake of where they have been. And, of course, there must be something fun for the kids.
Renting out part of the premises. If the room is large for you, then part of it can be rented out, the most best option- network companies (). These organizations dearly love large gatherings of people who are in no hurry to go anywhere. In addition, they have experience in such work, so their stands and staff will look quite presentable.
If conditions allow, you can organize something like a buffet - a showcase, a coffee machine and three tables.
Quizzes, contests, a lottery, etc. Here is one of the options I found on the Internet: advertising materials are freely distributed at the stands, and an SMS quiz is voiced, according to the terms of which you need to answer 10 paid (sending SMS messages) questions. At the end of each hour, valuable prizes are raffled between those who answer correctly. The mechanism is as follows - 50% of the cost of an SMS message goes to the operator, another 25% goes to the content provider that processes messages, and the last 25% goes back to the quiz organizers. It turns out that visitors are not only happy to sort out prospectuses, but also pay money for reading them carefully.

Job analysis

After the end of the exhibition, you need to sort out the exposition, calculate income and expenses, pay off the staff, but most importantly, start working with the information that you received during the exhibition. This needs to be done right away, so entrust all the other things to assistants, and take on contacts yourself.

In general, getting contacts is one of the most important functions of the exhibition. So, from the very beginning, set the staff on the fact that during the work of the exhibition they should receive as much as possible large quantity contacts. That is, their task is not only to smile and distribute booklets, but also to convince potential customers or partners to leave their coordinates: phone, email, business card, etc.

After the exhibition, you will need to sit down and work closely with each of them. Send out letters of gratitude to all visitors who left information about themselves with words of gratitude for their interest in your exposition. These letters are best prepared in advance, even in preparation for the exhibition. Then promise to contact the visitor within a week. If you want the visitor to remember your company, you need to send him a letter within 48 hours after the closing of the exhibition.

Having done this work, you can actually analyze the results of the exhibition: what worked and what didn’t, is it worth holding such events regularly, for how long and how often? Listen to staff, partners and just visitors. Ask them how to organize an exhibition in next time. This will help make things much better in the future. Who knows, perhaps your exhibition will become traditional and become one of the most significant annual events in your city.

Most artists, unless of course for them this is a job, and not a secret hobby for the soul, at some point the idea arises of the need to organize an exhibition of their works. At this moment, mostly for beginners, there are a lot of questions that can be reduced to one thing - how to hold an exhibition of paintings, the very first, debut.

In this material I will try to answer it, based on my experience and the experience of those artists with whom I had a chance to communicate. Presenting your work to the public is very important, because in this way you will give connoisseurs and art lovers the opportunity to learn about you.

However, now, as shown by my personal experience, the most important thing is to show yourself and your work to the public on the Internet. Yes, galleries and exhibitions are still open, but the Internet is the real effective tool for all emerging artists. See about it in my video.

How and where to sell a painting - all possible options

Artist's personal website

Be sure to have your own website - a gallery where your work will be presented! Friends, this is as important now as connections were before. Now the fastest way to convey your creativity to the viewer is through electronic channels. And it is desirable to have, first of all, a personal website.

It's not hard if you choose turnkey solutions when already hosting and Domain name configured, and your main task is to work on filling the site without being distracted by technical aspects.

I recommend Beget as a hosting provider. This site of mine, by the way, works for them. Even if you don’t know what a website, hosting, domain is at all, then consultants will help, prompt and, at your request, set up your website for you. Highly recommend!

Well, if you decide to go the old fashioned way, then I have collected recommendations for offline promotion for you. Although, I repeat once again, the past cannot be returned, yes, exhibitions will remain in real life, like theaters and cinemas, for example, but the prospects for the Internet are so great that it would be very imprudent not to use them. I am sure that in ten years the world will know new names that will become known only thanks to social networks and the Internet activities of the artist.

Goal Setting

Before you start any venture, you need a plan, as well as how to arrange an exhibition of paintings. Before you start compiling it, you need to answer yourself two key questions: what is the purpose of this exhibition, and how much money does the artist have.

The goal can be one of two: to make yourself known or to sell your work. It is clear that for beginners, the goal is mainly to gain popularity. Concerning money issue, then it determines the entire subsequent plan. Whether the artist will organize the event entirely on his own or leave it to professionals depends on the means at his disposal.

Depending on this amount, showroom, advertising costs are calculated, it is determined what guests will be treated to at the opening of the exhibition and whether journalists are needed.

How and where to hold the exhibition?

Therefore, if an exhibition of paintings is organized by a novice artist, then it is worth looking for an opportunity to make it free. This can be beneficial for both parties. For example, if you hold an exhibition in a bar, then the owner of the establishment can receive additional profit from the guests of the event. Among banks and corporations, there may also be those who want to help a young talent in a free organization.

You can also try to hold an exhibition of paintings in the library, having agreed with the management. Workers in the cultural sphere are very loyal to such proposals. In addition to libraries, you can go around the houses of culture at enterprises or municipal ones.

Room decoration

So, the first point is to choose a room. Further, when the issue with the premises is resolved, it becomes necessary to prepare an exposition, decide on the design, a place for paintings. Such issues are usually decided by the curator, so for a novice artist it makes sense to find such a specialist who would write a script. Usually an experienced museum employee is hired for this purpose.

On the other hand, you can hire specialists from a PR agency and completely shift all the work to them. For those who have cash are limited, you can try to open your own exhibition. There are two advantages here: budget savings and the opportunity to show your creative potential to the fullest.

Topic selection

When the artist has decided on this point, it is necessary to choose the theme of the event. Usually it is formed from the direction in which the creator works. You should not choose a topic for the exhibition in which the artist only practices and is not a professional. You can exhibit only those paintings that reveal a special well-developed style of the author, his "zest".

This also includes the name of your exhibition. This is also a very conceptual moment. Think carefully, write down on paper all the options that you could think of. Then cross out the ones that definitely don't fit. Well, then - either at random, randomly select from the remaining successful names, or using the one-on-one method, comparing, highlight the best.

How to hold an exhibition - Advertising

So the second point is to choose a topic, come up with a name and design an exhibition. After all the preparations, you can start an advertising campaign. You can also do it yourself, or you can use advertising agency. In the second option, you just need to come to the agency and explain the concept of your exhibition. Everything else will be taken care of by professionals.

They will also print posters, either according to your sketches, or their designer will arrange everything himself, and within the means mass media will run a series of announcements to let people know about the upcoming event.

— place an announcement of the upcoming exhibition on the Internet;
- create groups in social networks;
– independently create a poster and an event program using graphic editors;
- to advertise on radio, television or in the newspaper;
- compose and send invitations to friends, acquaintances and journalists.

Most often, when the latter are invited, they send out 2 invitations per edition. So, the third point is an advertising campaign. The number of visitors will depend on its quality.

The first impression can rarely be changed, so the artist should make sure that each item of the plan is carried out to the maximum professional level. You can do this on your own, if you are familiar with the topic well in advance, look at similar solo exhibitions of other young artists, pay attention to their organization and reviews in the press.

By the way, you can try to hold a joint exhibition with a more eminent artist. This option also works well, since people familiar with the famous painter are guaranteed to come to the exhibition. Well, they will also know about you.

You can also try to cooperate with the same novice artist. Pair exhibitions always attract visitors. Perhaps just because you can see the difference, compare the worldview and approaches of the authors. My husband and I ourselves like to visit such joint exhibitions of oil paintings in other cities.

Glow everywhere

For those who are just thinking how to hold an exhibition, the most important thing is to gain popularity among the media and connoisseurs of beauty. It is not so important whether during the first exhibition you will be able to sell your paintings. The main thing is that any exhibition is a resonance and a serious chance to declare oneself as a professional and talented artist.

I know several examples when fame came to an artist not because of paintings, but because of outrageousness. What can I say, you yourself have probably seen and heard such examples. What is worth, for example, nailing causal places on Red Square, or setting fire to the door of the FSB ... The path, in my opinion, is still not the same ... But since there is one, we will voice it.

In St. Petersburg, I know a girl who dresses in very revealing clothes at her exhibitions. And the purpose of men's visits to its exposition is not entirely clear - either to admire the paintings, or to admire their author. In a word, you can experiment in different ways.

Steps

Part 1

Art Search

Choose a unifying theme. A well-thought-out art exhibition is characterized by a well-traced theme that ties the different pieces together and gives the feeling that they are part of a whole. Think about what message your exhibition should convey. It can be an image or a phenomenon, a feeling or a certain visual technique.

Choose the most impressive work. Select a few of your best or most recent creations to show. If you are holding a personal exhibition, which should take the main place of your own work, you will need 10 to 30 paintings to present to the public. The theme of the exhibition must be displayed in each copy.

Contact local artists to provide exhibit materials. Do a little research to find creative people in your region who may be interested in participating in your exhibition. A collaborative effort can be a great opportunity for many different artists to present their art at one event, resulting in a more diverse and complete selection.

Work through different channels. Your exhibition should not consist solely of canvases and drawings. Feel free to include the work of photographers, sculptors and other figurative artists. A wide selection of works will give the cooperation a dynamic atmosphere and bring more joy to your clients.

Most the best solution– take on works that can be framed, hung on the wall and sold. Although you can also invite poets or musicians to perform at the event, especially if their work complements the theme of the exhibition.

Part 2

Event organisation

Decide on the date and time. Organizing an art exhibition requires an exhausting amount of coordination, so be realistic about the time frame you set for yourself. It's a good idea to start planning your event at least 2-3 months in advance so you have enough time to prepare. If possible, choose a date towards the end of the week, when many people have a day off and people are looking for things to do in the city.

Book a venue. Start your search suitable place for the exhibition. The most obvious solution is to rent a studio or an art gallery, but remember that the choice is not limited to traditional art locations. You can ask in restaurants, cafes, cultural centers, churches and business centers and find out if they are willing to help organize this event.

Rate your work for sale. The purpose of the exhibition is not only to show the artist's works, but also to sell them. Once you have an exposure, it is worth considering how much you value each piece. Try to set prices that are acceptable to both you and the buyer, taking into account the painting technique, technical complexity and labor invested in the creation of this work.

Let the rumor go. Let people around you know that you are working on an exhibition. You can mention this at a personal meeting or post information about the event on your pages on social networks. In some cases, cooperation with the administration of the venue is possible - they can make sure that the news reaches a wider range of visitors through their website, press releases and official announcements.

Part 3
Holding a successful exhibition
1. Ask for help. Enlist the support of volunteers, as well as the help of professionals: movers, framers and lighting experts. Together, it will be easier to cope with coordinating the unloading and loading of work, placing the necessary equipment and displays in the provided place, monitoring works of art so that they are not damaged or stolen. A dedicated team can lighten your burden, and their (the team's) presence ensures that the event goes off without a hitch.
  - In addition to movers, it’s a good idea to hire a photographer or cameraman to film the event, as well as musical group or a DJ for unobtrusive musical accompaniment.
  - Delegate tasks and responsibilities to a team of volunteers so you have the opportunity to put the finishing touches on the cooking.
2. Prepare your exhibition space. Your first order will be the installation and placement of works in the designated place. Based on this, you can adjust the lighting so that each work is well lit and clearly visible. Imagine how you want your visitors to see and interact with the space, then think about the final layout that will meet your goals.
3. - As with everything related to the exhibition, when compiling the menu, you need to take into account the location. Also think about what kind of atmosphere you want to create (casual or formal) and what kind of outfits you want your attendees to wear.
  - More reputable art galleries sometimes cover the cost of food at large events.
- It is highly recommended to take out liability insurance for the location where the exhibition is held. Thus, you will not be held responsible if something happens to the guest, the painting or the room itself.
- Plan, buy, arrange delivery, cleaning, framing and placement as early as possible to reduce the stress associated with the approaching date of the event.
- Wrap your artwork in bubble wrap to protect it during transport to and from the venue.
- If you are not afraid public speaking, perform at the opening with short speech. Thank the guests for coming, then take a few minutes to briefly explain the chosen topic, introduce the artists you have collaborated with, and your overall vision for this project.
- Consider selling other merchandise (t-shirts, bags, pins, etc.) that might be of interest to people who don't intend to buy original artwork.
Warnings
- Be sure to warn future visitors if the exhibition features "adult" themes that are not suitable for young viewers.