Holding a Virtual Art Exhibition

Holding a virtual art exhibition is mostly like holding a real exhibition except you don't physically see anyone and you don't have to feed anyone!

March 2020 saw a change in the way things were being done and you as an artist need to be able to adapt to whatever the situation is and maintain the ability to showcase your work.

The beauty of a virtual exhibition is that it can be done on a shoestring budget and can last as long as you want provided you have a few things in place.

Video is the ideal way to present your artwork and yourself for a virtual exhibition. Just using static images and text will make you just like every other website, every day of the week. If you want to stand out and your clients to have a great time, get creative and make it an experience. 

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

• A Website with a shopping cart 
• A phone or camera to capture video
• A lavalier microphone for better sound - something like this RODE Lavalier Mike - ensure you get an extension lead to about 6m
• A tripod or mount to hold your camera/phone steady - a car phone mount will do, if you don't want to spend any money at all, make a little sand bag and balance your phone on a pile of book with the bag on top to hold it in place.
• Some software for simple video editing - use iMovie on you iPhone or the built in Android facility
• Somewhere to host your videos - Youtube or Vimeo

PLAN YOUR SHOW

• Set a date!
• Paint as you would for a real exhibition
• Present/frame the artwork as you would for a real exhibition
• Give yourself time to prepare the artwork and create the video stories required to put it all together
• Plan your approach - set time frames for completion of steps
• Arrange someone to officially open your show as you would a real one - a pre-recorded video is easy!
• Maybe record some video testimonials from past purchasers of your art.
• Prepare an area in your home to shoot your story videos for each artwork. In fact if you are a landscape artist, you could even hold your virtual exhibition outdoors! You don't have to worry about the weather on the opening date, because you shoot everything before and on ideal days!
• Capture progress photos or video to include in your story videos. Give clients the full experience from concept to completion.

PREPARE YOUR SITE

• Set up a dedicated page on your website for the exhibition that can be hidden until game day.
• Decide on your layout, showing an image of the original painting, the story video and a Buy Now button.
• Load up all your content and invite a few knowledgeable people you trust to give some feedback and look for spelling errors and dud links. Fix anything that needs fixing so that everything runs smoothly at the opening. 

PROMOTING YOUR SHOW

• This should start about 3 weeks out from opening night.
• Email campaign to your database - use Mailchimp or similar. Prepare a series of 8 emails to be sent over the three week period, spread out at say 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 10 days, 6 days, 4 days, 3 days, 2 days, and finally one day before with some teasers along the way to encourage people to lock the date in their calendar just as they would if they were to attend the real show.
• In your email and all promotion, you should have a link to your site where people can register to attend. You may even want to have a 'Lucky Door Prize" for those who register and then announce their presence on your Facebook page during the opening.
• Finally, on Game day, send an email one hour before with a link to the opening announcing it will be live at 'whatever time your plan is". Be sure to include a link to your business Facebook page where you will be live and answering any questions for the duration of the opening, maybe one hour. Facebook is better for this than Instagram. Encourage people to post images of themselves having their own 'gallery party'!
• Social media advertising - this will coincide with your email campaign but will be to your page followers on all your social media platforms. You may want to do some targeted advertising here to encourage new prospects to sign up. Once they sign up they are prospects, when they buy, they are clients.

FOLLOW UP

• First step - day after opening. Send an email to everyone again, thanking them for their participation and making the show a success - even if you don't sell anything, it's a success that you actually made the effort to made it happen - sales can still happen over time.
• Make sure you've responded to everyone on the Facebook page and remind them there as well that the exhibition remains open and originals or reproductions are available for sale.
• Continue promoting the exhibition one image at a time in the weeks following and then as often as you feel necessary or any time you are looking for something to post!
• Don't forget to deal with orders promptly - get reproduction orders to us ASAP and we'll get them out to your clients for you. If you need a hand sending originals, give us a call.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?

If you need help in any area here, we can help. Fees will depend on what is required and will be worked out on a job by job basis.

• Web site set up
• Video stories - you need to write the story, we can shoot the video here in our gallery.
• Video editing - you shoot it, we'll edit it for you
• Mailchimp campaign set-up
• Photographing your art for web display (lower cost than art capture)
• Anything else you can think of - if we can help, we will.