CAFW2020 - Supporting Artist’s Online
Here we go again! Camberwell Arts 2020 Winter programme was, unsurprisingly, online, running 28 Nov to 6 Dec. We did toy with attempting an outdoor market for a while but decided the risk (weather + COVID) was too great. And then Lockdown 2.0 arrived, so looks like we made the right choice.
The winter programme is always more commercial than the summer festival, so this year we decided to just focus on helping artists promote and sell their work.
So, open studios became virtual with an expansion of the Artist Directory and a series of recorded studio tours. Particular mention needs to be made of Warrior Studios, who submitted a series of artist portraits produced by James Alec Hardy.
The arts market became an online shop. This was definitely a trickier move than the directory. Led by Colleen Burns’ design, and thankfully with help from Natasha and Natalie (new CAF committee members) we uploaded around 200 products onto the website .
*The shop is no longer live - so no link sorry :(
For the first time round, I’d say the market was a success. We made almost 2k for 70+ sales for 29 artists. I think we’ll probably run it alongside the physical market in the future. Maybe even a monthly curated selection, to cut down on the admin.
Tip for potential sellers, people are mad for local buildings, particularly Cruson!
The trickiest bit about the shop was payment integration. Stripe in particular is not keen on outgoing transactions, but I did eventually find a work-around with connected account.
I did also finally push through another pet project of mine, the What’s On Guide to Camberwell, listing all the artsy events and activities happening in the borough.
One of my favourite parts of the winter programme was the design, again courtesy of Colleen. I asked for some frames for social media so artists could CAF brand their posts - they looked fab!
And I couldn’t sign-off without mentioned Debbie Allen’s solar lanterns. With no physical market presence in town, we worried we couldn’t get the word out. But Debbie pulled off a gorgeous PR solution.