Has anyone ever considered or advertised in local newspapers/news websites for the few weeks prior to their art shows? It's something I am considering, pending the price tag of it, for some of the better shows if I get accepted. This is something I would only do in select markets that I know would work.
For example, I applied to 2 shows in Marin County, a highly affluent, small, close knit county with 250,000 residents who all likely follow their local paper. What do you all think about that? It's not something for every show, just for the areas I think it would be seen and beneficial.
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Don't waste your money, it is expensive and results are poor. In my local daily, where I was previously Managing Editor, I just had a front page story about a large show I was doing with a major non-profit agency. It was the main story with two photos, a "More Info" box with my web address and it was 1/3 of the page. I closely tracked my web traffic and I didn't get any bump at all.
Exhibitors want to see an ad in the paper. But the promoters I work with don't place their advertising money there. One told me he does it to "satisfy the artists". But the bulk of advertising is on TV, radio, emails, billboards where allowed, etc. (Billboards are illegal in Vermont)
One promoter has a table near the entrance where customers can sign up to be notified of upcoming shows via email. She has over 30,000 email addresses and notifies each one for each show.
All the above ideas are excellent.
Because frankly, nobody reads newspapers anymore. Even the New York Times is facing a major decline in readership.
Check on Yelp.com to see if the show has posted the event on Yelp's "events" tab. If so you can do a "review" of the event. Make it an exciting preview of the show, not too commercial. If the show management has not created an event on Yelp, ask them to do so. You might even volunteer to create the entry yourself. Create a gmail account for the event to prevent the spam you would get if you use your own, and use the event's phone#. Use an easy to remember password and share it with the show.
You should have a Yelp account for your own business, it's free. This lets you search the area where the show will be held for power users of Yelp (they are called elites) and send them an invitation to patronize your booth (perhaps offer a discount or some other incentive)
You might also do the same thing on tripadvisor. You likely should also set up your trip advisor account with your permanent business address, then post on the forums for the cities where the shows are. Don't get commercial, just informative.
Do a google search for "events in xxx" for the town and again for the region where the show is held. You may find several sites that allow listing of local events. You will be surprised at what you can accomplish in a few evenings on the laptop instead of watching tv.
Taking that one step further.
Post your bio and/or about the uniqueness of your art to the show's own Facebook page.
Larry Berman
Great idea and so easy!
I like Carrie's idea about Patch.com. Also, If you have a story about yourself you can contact the arts or features editor of the city where the show is. Sometimes they will run something, and/or send it to the show itself and maybe they'll get it placed. If you've got the time and energy and something to show these people it can pay off.
Some years ago the Coconut Grove Arts Festival asked for info from participating artists. Few reply to these requests, but we did. It resulted in the reporter showing up at the show and running a story and photo in the Miami Herald. Nice.
Don't know if this is still possible but I heard a few years ago about artists posting their information on Craigslist. Check that out. Also, see what kind of FB pages the local publications have and see if you can post there. Spending your own $$ a little chancy ...
Zach, check out Patch.com, which has a bunch of sites in California. I worked for Patch for a couple years, and where the sites are good and strong, they do have heavy readership. You can post for free, and if you are willing to take the time, you can put up blog posts with photos of your work and tons of show information - at least you used to be able to, and I am pretty sure you still are. It's worth checking. It's also worth getting in touch with the local or regional Patch editor to see if he or she will either do a story on you, or on the show, or accept a full story that you write about yourself, your art journey, etc.
Patch was a great idea that was so poorly handled that many, if not most, sites have closed - but if you can find sites that are still up and running, they're just GREAT for artists.
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