The opening night to the show was in my view a success. I had spend a huge amount of time planning it and I had put a huge focus on all the supporting aspects of it.
I had hung the work as pre planned and work shopped though with local welsh artist Aled Hughes.
I negotiated a free hire of the gallery for a week as it was in collaboration with HATW.
I did have to pay a £50 fee for the hire for the event.
I opened at 6 with a musical act on at 7 playing followed by talks from myself, Hannah Morgan the founder of HATW and Edel Marie a friend and vice principle of a high school in Bristol.
I had donation based entry and work for sale including zines.
I made enough through entry and zine sales to cover the venue hire and make an additional £20.
It was a nerve wrecking sleep deprived journey to get to this point but all in all it was a fairly successful evening I felt.
The video above gives shows the talks that were given and also a bit of music from Brightr who was really supportive. The turnout wasn’t to bad considering the contributing factors that were going on that day with the weather, internationally football and also a very strict very early time slot.
I got the help of a friend James how helped with getting some video for me and my wife who also works with me on some event jobs shot some stills as well. I hired my brother to work the door and we operated a ‘donation’ based entry. I made a board with some incentives much like you’d see on a kickstarter campaign. I also ran promoted the hashtags and encouraged people to use them to help organically grow the project with a new audience.
I had already been in and figured out where images would be using smaller prints and hung it the day before I also added a sheet with some info on the project and advertised selling prints with the aim to raise money for HATW.
It was great to see some familiar faces and also a lot of new ones that showed a lot of interest.
After Brightr’s Music Set I talked about the intentions and purpose of the project also see video at top.
I then had Hannah the co founder of HATW talk about what they do
we ended with Edel a friend and vice principle linking in art, HATW and mental health in schools.
All in all it was ok. I would change a few things for the next one. I would potentially have it at a space that is well known to the public and easier to advertise. I would also try and get a venue that is familiar with playing music that way I can get full bands playing and several of them which would justify an entrance and if any of the bands where able to play the show like a charity event more money could go to HATW. I would also insist on a more suitable time. the original time of 5pm was far too earlier most people work till 5- 5.30 and it is impossible to get any decent amount of working people with money to spend on music and art there. Judging by other events in other cities 7 seems to be the earliest time that I have seen and I would go for that and maybe have it more of a music gig ( which it would be ) and have the art in the venue for a week.