Productive Post-Fair Activities
That ensure your time at art fairs is well spent.
One concept we embrace is spending time now doing tasks that will save you time later. This is the ultimate investment. Going to art fairs take a ton of time, money and energy. Here’s how we optimize that spend:
Document art we see and like at the fair. This means taking 1 photo of the art, and another of the info card, and then saving both photos to one central folder. This last step is key. Without it, the photos are 1) not shared with others on your current or future team, and 2) lost in the mix of personal and professional photos, which does not allow for easy future reference. (Here’s a summary of our Miami favorites, ICYMI).
Ask galleries to send professional images of works of interest, and then archive those images and artwork details. The #1 reason we have business cards is to facilitate this exchange. The artworks of interest can include those you saw at the fair, and those offsite. Next, go through those emails after the fair, then save the images and details in one central location. We use SmugMug for our internal database. We do have a staff member who maintains this, but if you don’t, save all these emails and dedicate 1 hour/month to archiving the information. Yes, that is quality time, but it also leverages the efforts spent onsite so you can save time in the future by easily referencing and using the information to better service clients.
Matchmake art & clients. We look through images of art seen at the fairs and consider what would work for the various active clients. Yes, a lot of art is sold at the fair, but it’s a myth that all of it is sold. And, fair discovery goes well beyond what was shown in the booth — often times we see art in the booth and get availability listings of other works by that artist (per #2 above), that are offsite and less likely to sell during the fair. These are the works we can put into our client presentations in the days, weeks and months following the fair.
Follow up with galleries. Relationship building is a huge part of the process. It makes working in this industry fulfilling, gives you access to works in the future, and ensure that are building a support system with things don’t go as planned —- bought artwork gets lost in customs, pieces arrive damaged, etc. etc. Here’s a snippet of the art world schmoozing we did that could not have been more valuable.
Spending the time today investing in all of this for the future is time well spent, and it is time that ultimately enables you to run a more streamlined, effective business that services clients successfully. Plus, in January, we’ll share a post on what stuck with us from Miami, one month later — always a strong sign of impactful art.
