Continued Planning of FAFVII

After many committee meetings and research, the FAFVII committee has decided to hold an online exhibit instead of a "bricks and mortar" one. Why, you may ask?  In the last blog I mentioned having an exhibition in the James S. Copley auditorium of The Museum. Researching this idea, we came up with a proposal to allow for 200+ works of art on exhibition. We would purchase or rent panels to hold the two dimension art and pedestals for three dimensional art. In researching the cost for this approach, we discovered it to be prohibitive. In addition, we would not be able to have use of the auditorium for a long period of time. Other factors we considered included

1. The need to be able to receive and return artwork from participants
2. The time needed to set up the panel system and pedestals.
3. The time needed to hang and place art.
4. The volunteers needed to accomplish these tasks.

Our original concept for the exhibition was to also have an online presence showing the art that was accepted in the exhibition on our website. We even decided to include art that was not accepted in a separate section of our website. Our goal was and is to offer opportunities for our members to exhibit and to sell their art.

Because of our research, the committee has decided to have a strictly online exhibition for FAFVII. This is a whole new concept for us, which means we have to research and develop methods to do a show like this. There are many aspects to this exhibition that we need to determine including

1. Securing funding for
   1. The cost to create an exhibition space on our website.
   2. Other costs of processing entries.
   3. Creating graphics needed for marketing or public relations
   4. For monetary prizes for the artists.
2. Determining the best way to have the exhibition online.
   1. Do we have a section for artist biographies, featured artists, etc.?
   2. Designing the most professional layout for the exhibit site.
   3. Do we make this a booth show online?
3. Create a marketing and public relations plan and implementing it.
   1. Using social media
   2. Educating our artists to help with social media marketing.
   3. Utilizing already existing online resources to advertise the exhibit and draw customers to it.
4. Create a system for handling sales and follow through
   1. Notification of sale by artist.
   2. Confirmation of shipping, etc.
   3. Follow through with customer and artist.
   4. Accounting considerations.

Our FAFVII committee with be meeting with the Sales Committee to combine our efforts to make all sales on our website successful. There is much to do to make this work.

Putting on an exhibition like this is an enormous task. Most of the people on the FAFVII committee and the sales committee are the same members. Most of those are on the Guild’s board. As you can imagine, these members would welcome help from all other members who can spare some time to make this effort a success.