Art Show - Artist Registration

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Before you send out artist invitations (and that includes posting them on your web site), you should be ready to receive applications for space.

  • You'll need to print up copies of your forms and rules. These can be put on a web site, but you still need paper copies. Some artists can't access them on the web.
  • When artists reserve space by mail, who do they mail to?
  • If you allow space reservations over the web, does the same person get them?
  • Does the same person keep track of paperwork and tracking how many panels and tables are left?
  • Who sends acknowledgments and follow-up paperwork back out to the artist?
  • If you recieve checks in the mail, how do they get deposited in the bank?
  • Who answers questions from artists: via email, phone, or snail-mail?

If one person does all of the above tasks, coordination is simple. But as the show gets larger, doing everything becomes difficult. If there is more than one person involved, how does the information and paperwork get transferred from one person to another? Coordinating becomes complicated - e.g., if person A answers the mail and person B records who has how many panels, how does the information get from A to B? You don't want to wait for a monthly con-com meeting.

You may want a separate art show address for panel reservations and art show questions, to avoid an extra step in the process. If applications come in via email, it's fast and usually reliable to convey the information between art show staff the same way; but email can't transmit papers and checks, and turning paper applications into email involves data entry - a source of both work and errors.

Your goals in setting up your system are, in order of priority:

  • No lost information
  • Quick response to artists
  • No extra work (i.e., data is only entered once).

You want to confirm space reservations to artists quickly. Email is good for that, but some artists don't have it and it has a higher failure rate than snailmail. Likewise, even if artists can download everything off the web, some artists won't have access and will need paper forms mailed to them. If you use duplicating forms of any sort (most often art control sheets or bid sheets), they will need to be mailed since most artists aren't set up to print on NCR paper.

You also need to determine how and when you will stop allowing artists to enter the art show. You must stop taking reservations when you run out of space, but may also impose a deadline for entry. You also probably want to establish a wait list. If you fill up early, it may contain artists who would mail in, but as the show approaches, they need to be dropped in favor of local artists.