Finding a venue

Finding a venue
How and where you ‘place’ your product is vital to attracting your audience. ‘Place’ refers to the actual location of your event, the physical environment you offer your visitors, the time it takes place and even how you ‘position’ it with your target market. The physical environment of your exhibition is important. Is it the right dimensions to show the work you are using? Will you be able to use the space flexibly or are there hanging restrictions? Will your visitors feel welcome and at ease? Think about the location as well. This will be important to your potential audience in terms of things like ease of access, transport links, parking, whether it is easy to find.  
Think about whether you would like to show your exhibition in a conventional museum or gallery space or whether you would like to use a community space, which may be more immediately accessible to your target audience. There are literally hundreds of different museum and gallery venues in the UK, some specialising by medium (photography, performance, sculpture or craft, for example) and others specialising by area of interest (local history museums). Other venues that may be suitable to stage an exhibition include local libraries, community centres, doctors waiting rooms - the possibilities are endless, so be creative. 
If you are considering a non-gallery location, you might wish to take the following factors into consideration:

How will you hang the work? Don't assume you can drill into the wall or even stick things onto it. You will need to ask the venue about their guidelines for using the space, including whether they will allow you to put free standing structures up

What about lighting? Most community venues will not have directional lighting and, in addition, they may require a minimum level of lighting to meet their health and safety requirements. This could be an issue if you are looking to exhibit film and video or other work that requires darkness

Do they have a health and safety policy? You will need to talk to the person responsible for implementing health and safety procedures to check what you can exhibit and where you can place it. For example, the venue may have dedicated fire escape routes, which will prevent you from placing work in certain areas. They may also have issues about things like flashing lights or the light intensity of a projector

Approaching a venue
Publicly funded galleries usually have a policy on their website or available from a staff member as to how they want to be approached by artists - if at all. Smaller scale galleries might accept unsolicited proposals, or may have open submission selections at certain times of the year. Larger, major gallery spaces will probably not accept unsolicited applications at all, preferring instead to invite artists to exhibit with them. Community venues, such as libraries or community halls, will usually want to see a clear benefit to local people.
Once you have made a shortlist of venues you would like to approach you will need to make a short presentation or proposal, preferably containing visuals. Even a great exhibition or body of work needs to be presented well for people to be interested. The minimum information you should send should include:

• Images of work by the artists you would like to exhibit (previous work is acceptable if you are commissioning new work). These should ideally be printed on paper, not sent on slides or digitally
• A brief statement about the aims and objectives of the exhibition (preferably no more than 1 side of A4)
• A brief statement/CV about the exhibiting artists (again, this should be no more than 1 side of A4)
• A stamped, addressed envelope if you would like the work returned