I may have mentioned that I've spent most of January emailing every school I can find (at the rate of 400 a day, which is the gmail limit, now you ask). I've had a few responses and some good bookings building up. But it wasn't until Tuesday of this week (the 26th) that I got round to emailing all the Art Centres.
Two days later I already have four classes lined up with art centres with, I hope, more to come. They've certainly responded with a hit rate that must be a few thousand times higher than schools. I emailed 203 art centres and have heard from half a dozen. Of the few thousand schools I've emailed, I've only heard from a dozen so far. It's almost like they're a bit busy or something.
So far I have classes lined up with North Wall Arts in Oxford (Feb 16),
Arts Depot Finchley (Feb 18), and Zion Arts in Bristol (Mar 20). The fourth class is something a little different.
Class Bento is an organisation that started in Australia and has now expanded into the UK. It offers experiences in, I guess, a virtual bento box. Things like cookery classes and art classes. So, at no expense to myself other than a percentage of sales, I've listed a class with them on March 6th. As you can see from the ad I've made, based on how it appears on their website, they've retitled the class and changed the description slightly. But they say they know how to sell these things, so let's see how that works out.
The acid test for all these events is whether they can sell them. As I've noted before regarding my online classes, when I travel to a local arts centre to do events in person, the arts centre is usually able to attract local kids from their mailing list or regular attendees, and we regularly find ourselves turning kids away. But since classes moved online, with the whole world as my potential audience, I've been finding it hard to attract the numbers. Let us see if these four classes, with their own mailing lists and different pricing structures, can find attendees that I wouldn't be able to find on my own.
Currently all of these classes are competing with my own self-produced Comic Art Masterclass on Feb 6th, the only one apart from Class Bento that's on sale yet, and whose tickets, with a week to go, stand at just 6 sold. Now let us see which of the four delivers
UPDATE: Acorn Arts Penzance now added, on Feb 15th
UPDATE Feb 4: Arts Depot has sold out the morning class and added an afternoon. They're winning so far!
UPDATE Feb 4: And then there were seven! Chesterfield Borough Council have added a class, on Feb 27th. Tickets just £3.50 (they pay me half the fee as a guarantee, I make up the rest from ticket sales)
UPDATE:The results of the first four days of art centre classes can be seen in this blog.
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