It seems no one has replied on-list yet to your inquiry of 10 days ago. Maybe it was too many questions, some quite hard to answer. I put it off, but I'll take a stab at it now. Please let me know what conclusions you reach. Ann Harlow, Director Hearst Art Gallery Saint Mary's College of California Moraga, CA 94575-5110 510-631-4643/fax 510-376-5128 [log in to unmask] On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Julia Moore, Indianapolis Art Center, wrote: > We are in the process of rethinking how we do exhibition openings, and I > would like to pick your collective brain for a moment. Could you please > send me your thoughts on the following questions? I am particularly > interested in responses from those who have experienced the opening > phenomenon in contemporary art museums/centers, university > museums/galleries, and galleries that deal primarily with local or regional ar t. > > How often do you change temporary exhibitions? > --Six times a year. > Do you have an opening reception with each change? If not, how often do you > have openings? > --Yes; one recent exception to the usual public reception was to have a campus reception on the opening day followed by a family festival with a reception at the end a few days later. > What is the typical attendance for such openings? --Anywhere from around 60 to around 250 Do you consider this low, high, or satisfactory? --We consider under 100 disappointing. Have you noticed certain factors (such as weather,timing, nature of the work shown, whether the artist is local or not, etc.)impacting your attendance, and how? --Yes, all of the above, plus football games on Sunday afternoons in January. > What measures have you tried to increase attendance at openings, and to what > extent have they been successful? --We have tended to serve a pretty fine spread of goodies. We often provide a lecture in conjunction with the reception. Both are helpful, I think. > What day of the week do you have your openings, and what time of day? --Most often Sunday 2-4 or 3-5; sometimes a Friday night preview of a show opening Saturday. Weeknight early evenings are difficult because of our suburban location/rush hour traffic. > Do you coordinate your openings with other happenings in your community, and > how does this affect attendance? --I can't think of a case in which we've done so in recent years. Rather, we try to avoid times when we know other potentially competing events are happening. > (this is a philosophical question, so get ready) What do you see as the > purpose for openings? For example, do you see them as marketing tools for > the artist, for your institution, development opportunities, social > occasions, or some combination? --a marketing tool to get as many people in the door as early in the exhibition as possible to get the word-of-mouth snowball effect going. Certainly it's something artists and their friends have come to expect, too, so I wonder if you'll be successful in making changes. Oh, there's also the use of members-only receptions as an incentive for joining. > What do you think is the IDEAL way of operating and conceptualizing openings? --Well, ideally money would be no object and the staff and public would have a great time celebrating a great new show. The real-life compromise is to keep costs moderate, invite members and special guests only or invite the public and sell drinks or put out a donation jar, and have a good enough mailing list that you find the attendance worth the effort.