Smart Arts - Creative New Zealand

ForewordThe purpose of marketing is to build an audience for your work. Findings from aCreative New Zealand survey, Portrait of the Artist: a survey of professional practisingartists in New Zealand, show that more than half of the artists interviewed (58%) saidthey needed assistance in marketing and promoting their work.Artists and arts organisations in New Zealand often run small businesses and produce artsevents on slim resources, with considerable success. Smart arts | Toi huatau is a practical,how-to publication focussed on marketing an arts event – whether it’s an exhibition, aliterary festival, a concert, theatre or dance production.Aimed at supporting artists, entry-level publicists and producers, the guide does notattempt to cover the wider topic of marketing and selling your publications or visualartworks. There are already books on this topic and New Zealand arts organisations youcan contact for help, some of which you will find listed in the Appendix.To complement this guide, we have produced a “living” version for our website(www.creativenz.govt.nz). This provides links to other sites and includes templates you candownload and alter to suit your particular requirements. You can also download the fulldocument from the Resources section of our website.Creative New Zealand works in a range of ways that support artists and arts organisations todevelop audiences and build new markets – both in New Zealand and overseas. As NickyNicolaou says in her introduction to this guide, marketing is about taking a strategicapproach to promoting artists’ work. One of the first things you need to do is find out asmuch as you can about your audience. In 2000, Creative New Zealand published Knowyour audience: me möhio ki tö whakaminenga. This document contains findings from oursurvey on New Zealanders’ participation in the arts, and provides useful data and profiles onperforming arts audiences, gallery visitors and readers. If you would like a copy of thispublication, please let us know.I should like to thank everyone who has offered advice and worked on this publication – inparticular, Nicky Nicolaou, who has put considerable effort and time into writing it.Thanks also to Vicki Allpress, Makerita Urale and Monika Ahuriri for their contributionson marketing on the web, and marketing to Mäori and Pacific Island audiences.Kia hora te märino, kia whakapapa pounamu te moana, kia tere te kärohirohi i mua itö huarahi.Elizabeth KerrChief ExecutiveCreative New ZealandAugust 2003Smart arts | Toi huatau3