Requirements
- Business loan from bank or family member
- Connections with other artist in your city.
- Partnerships with local events newsletters
- More, a lot more here and there but the above is good enough for now.
The business model in an elevator pitch
Rent an establishment that features the works of local artists, charge 3.00 a person at the door. You could probably get funding from the city to help support the gallery. You could feature your own work, the work of other local artists or the work of talented high school & college art students.
The artwork featured in your local gallery can be for sale if the vendor likes, but please no price tags on the works. Although you are developing a sales gallery it’s not the primary image you are trying to portray to your clientele.
For art sales gallery visitors will be referred to the website where featured works are listed by title and tagged with meta data, including original and print prices, sizes, artist bio, etc. No pictures of artwork on the site catalog though. You want to keep the visual experience as an intimate gallery browsing experience to encourage ticket sales. Mystery and positive customer experience are your friends in this business model.
Gallery claims 10% of all artwork sales brokered through the website.
The gallery also, with the consent of the artist, will scan and save professional quality images for producing print versions of artworks through partnership with a local print shop vendor.
Logistics
Depending on your location you will probably see rent for your modest local gallery to be in-between $100.00 to $200.00 a day. For this imagination exercise let’s say rent is $150.00 a day.
@3.00 you would need to sell 50 tickets a day to cover your operating space costs.
Next let’s consider labor. A single person shift will cost around $64.00 (8.00 * 8hrs). which @3.00 a ticket you would need about 22 tickets.
We are assuming electricity and water is included in rent, but that probably will not be the case . So let’s assume that utilities cost you $10.00 a day.
So just to cover your basic operational expenses you are looking at a required turn-out of 76 paying visitors a day.
And probably, that’s not going to happen.
In order to make this business model work you will need additional income beyond the scope of ticket sales.
One staple income suppliant would be the sales of featured works through the website. But there are other tricks you could do to help.
Primary & Secondary Income Sources for this Model
- Ticketed viewers (primary)
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Commissions from artwork (primary)
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Merchandise
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Private event rentals
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Donations
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State & city level grants.
Upselling the Idea
- If you are able to keep creating unique experiences with amateur and professional (local) artwork then you will create a point of leisure in your community. You may see the same people come back every month to see what’s new and even look for items to personalize their home with ($$$).
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You’re not re-creating your local art museum. You are creating a brand new leisure product that has the potential to be viewed as cultural and economical milestone for your community. Can you see the hipsters and the sophisticates buzzing around your venue yet?
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Separate the actually browsing gallery from the ticket sales counter, keeping the browsing experience intimate.
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Artist from around your areas may seek you out to host their artwork. Hosting artwork will not cost you a dime. Artist will happily loan you their work for display and exposure.
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Get creative with your business model! You are going to need more than low cost ticket sales to keep your operation running. Let your visitors know that item prices are available online and items in your gallery that are for sell can be purchased for pickup from your online store.
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Partner with a local print shop to produce on-demand prints for buyers.
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Partner with a local framing company to offer framing options at a discounted rate. Charge that company a partnership fee for being your official services supplier, or have the pay referral fees for prints’ and originals’ framing.
Why share this model?
First off, I don’t paint. And I’m already busy why be stingy?
But I appreciate art, and like spending time at museums when I go to bigger cities, and I love a good local leisure event.
It’s amazing what the mind comes up with late at night, and it would be a shame to see a good idea untapped.
Feel free to leave your feedback below and help improve the available avenues.