Prepping and deciding for your show
Tomorrow is the Holiday RAWK Show and I am pretty close to getting everything in place to be ready for the event. There are just a few items I need to tighten up and I spent last weekend pulling it all together. Last week I went to check out the space and get a preview of the event, as well and get a sense of the things that I will need to be ready for Dec 20th. Below is a little bit of a run down that I hope will give you some ideas about how to prepare, wether it’s for your fist show our your 50th.
How to prepare
The advisory board for the event is really top notch, which has been a really huge help.
There have been a few weekly calls, ongoing e-mails, constant contact for people reaching out for advice and looking for help. It also helps that the festival coordinators are very organized. I can’t imagine the amount of time it takes to pull something like this together. It must be a monumental challenge to coordinate. This has taken at least 60% of the work off of the artists plate and made it so that we can just focus on the work and get things ready for the event. Even, if you don’t have a super top notch organizing team to pull the event together, at the very least have a contact person available for questions and concerns. It’s going to save a lot of time and energy.
Checking out the space in advance
As part of he set up we were given the opportunity to check out the space and see what the layout is going to look like. We got an email with a floor plan and a designated area which was also helpful.
However, that is not quite the same as being able to go and check out the location and see the actual space where you are going to show your work. That is a big difference between this show and the other. shows. This was also monumentally helpful as I was trying to decide what I am going to prepare for the event. Now after seeing the space I have a sense of what makes the most sense to prepare. I have a sense of how much real estate I will need and what the logistics would look like. I can definitely project, but will need to make sure to bring extra power supplies and power strips and account for the people that might get in the way. The key thing to note here is that checking out the logistics of the space is a key to getting prepared way in advance.
Doing a dry run
Last weekend I took the night before to do a test/dry run of what I am projecting for the show.
This meant setting up all of the parts in my apartment/studio so that I don’t have to fumble with setup on the day of the show. I set up the projector, laid out the business cards and oriented my space so that I can get a sense of what is going to happen the day of. Normally most shows don’t give you the luxury of much prep time. This however has been another key in helping me decide to project and prepare.
It will also be important to get the measurements as close as possible to the day of, just to try and simulate the day of experience.
Getting ready the night before
I have made my e-mails lists, I have my business cards ready, I have my slide show set up and ready to go, and I have all of my hanging utensils in place. That means that I don’t have anything left to do the night before. (side note: because I am going to be projecting from an iPad, anything can go wrong, so it is going to help if you are doing a set up like this, to also have an alternative method to project from a source, in case of technical glitches, etc. etc. So I will also make a copy of the showcase on my phone as well. Prep your setup as much as you can. That leaves you space to relax and enjoy the show the day of the event.
Next time I will post some photos, and give a round up of how everything went.
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