Museums at Night 2013 has begun!

After long anticipation Museums at Night has finally arrived! We are very excited to see some amazing pictures coming through on Twitter from people getting involved in events, exhibitions and performances across the UK.

Fantastic Owls at last nights Museums at Night event #MatN2013 Thank you to all who braved the weather! (c) Oxford Museum

Our own reporters have been racing across the country. Rosie Clarke spent last night in Lancashire, singing along with Susan Forsyth’s  Zusammen Choir while Amy Strike spent her Thursday night detecting bats at Hatchlands Park. Ben Miller, Nick Stockman and Sejul Malde visited the Horniman Museum to see rAndom International’s installation, and Ruth Hazard enjoyed an exclusive night behind the scenes at the Faber and Faber Archives.

The Horniman Museum

Tonight the Culture24 interns, along with Jack Shoulder will be dashing around the Grant Museum of Zoology for the UCL Treasure Hunt, while Richard Moss will be in the Brighton Toy and Model Museum examining trains.

Nick Stockman will be on the way up to Newcastle tomorrow to take part in Julia Vogl’s giant art installation, while Jane Finnis will be joining the Chapman Brothers at the Jerwood Gallery. Meanwhile, Anra Kennedy will be making a Great Escape to Brighton Museum, and Amy will be curled up in Brunel House’s Midnight Apothecary, recovering with a cocktail.

Creative mask making and papercraft at Tullie House last night at #MatN2013 @thecommonpeople

If you are looking for a Museums at Night event to go to there is still time!

You can find out more about the hundreds of events happening over the next two days here.

We look forward to hearing about your Museums at Night adventures!

Curious about the Connect10 competition? We’re here to help!

We’re getting a lot of interest in the Connect10 competition, which is terrific – this isn’t just a chance to secure a top artist and up to £2000 towards your Museums at Night event, but also offers every venue taking part some great audience development, publicity and creative programming opportunities.

Connect10 can open your venue’s doors to contemporary artists. L’Alége d’Or (c) Gavin Turk, 2012

It’s also been great to see venues asking their audiences which artists they’d like to see. One good example is this tweet from Tullie House in Carlisle:

What type of event would you like @tulliehouse for Museums at Night in May? Help us win an artist for the night. ow.ly/gIWdw

— Tullie House (@TullieHouse) January 11, 2013

1) Information

Find out all the details about how the Connect10 competition works here: you’ll also find links to our complete resource pack for venues, and the competition Ts & Cs.

2) Artists

The ten participating artists this year are Jake & Dinos Chapman, Martin Creed, Mat Collishaw, Cullinan Richards, Susan Forsyth, rAndom International, Gavin Turk, Julia Vogl, Richard Wentworth and Julian Wild.

Meet all the Connect10 artists and discover their ideas – could any of these work well at your venue?

3) Submit your idea

Enter your event idea into the Connect10 competition via this form by 5pm on Thursday 31 January!

The Connect10 competition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Don’t forget, Nick and I are here to help. We’ve already spoken to many of you, so please don’t feel shy about getting in touch. If you have questions about any aspect of the process, or would like to discuss your plans, simply give us a call on 01273 623336 or email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Connect10 competition: what could the ten artists do for you?

Meet the ten artists who are taking part in the 2013 Connect10 competition, find out about their creative journeys and what they’d like to create. Could you see any of these ideas working in your museum, gallery, library or heritage site?

(c) Jake and Dinos Chapman

The Turner Prize-nominated Chapman Brothers studied at the Royal College of Art, and worked as assistants to British artists Gilbert and George. Their iconoclastic sculptures, paintings, prints and large-scale installations draw on confrontational imagery to question standards of politics, political correctness and obscenity in witty and frequently shocking ways: in the past they have reworked Goya etchings and watercolours by Hitler.

The Chapman Brothers’ Connect10 idea:
Off the top of our heads we’re thinking of staging either: a live human Autopsy-Turvy involving radioactive isotopes and a fun game of ‘Hunt the Spleen’; ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ at a zoo; a game of Night Vision Paintball in a cathedral; a Wall of Death Motorcycle Gauntlet in a museum; or something involving industrial storage heaters at a waxwork museum. But if any participating institutions have a better idea we’re completely up for a discussion.

Insecticide (c) Mat Collishaw

Mat Collishaw (c) Axel Hoedt

Mat Collishaw

Central to Mat Collishaw’s work are the themes of illusion and desire, which he uses to draw us into an arena where everyday conventions are broken down and questioned. The photographer and video innovator is known for his hard-hitting images of beauty and cruelty, and has created adult zoetropes, photographed himself trying to catch fairies, and used phosphorescent paint to convey the brief lives of Victorian street children.

Mat Collishaw’s Connect10 idea:
I’d like visitors to help me prepare and make some of my work, in order to get a deeper understanding of my practice and the motives behind what I make and how I make it. These technical practices might include the flattening of the butterflies for my insecticide works or helping me create some of my spinning zoetropes and will be accompanied by informal discussion and guidance from me and my studio assistants.

Work No. 88: A sheet of paper crumpled into a ball (1996) (c) Martin Creed, image courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Martin Creed (c) Jason Schmidt

Martin Creed

2001 Turner Prize winner Martin Creed has exhibited his solo shows, performances and installations around the world. His recent works involve various art forms including music, dance, writing, sculpture and painting: pieces ranging from compositions for symphony orchestra and music for elevators to architectural commissions, public monuments and dance and performances which combine classical ballet with talk, music, film and animation.

Box Paint Class, Wide Open School, Hayward Gallery, London (2012) (c) Cullinan Richards

(c) Cullinan Richards

Cullinan + Richards 

Cullinan Richards is a London-based artistic collaboration between Charlotte Cullinan and Jeanine Richards. Since 1997 they have been producing work ranging from painting to performance to film, fusing personal histories with fiction so as to confront shared social and cultural issues. In 2006, they established Savage School Window Gallery, a gallery exhibiting works from a window in their studio on Vyner Street, London. Together they were on the panel of selectors for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2012.

Cullinan + Richards’ Connect10 idea:
We’d love to create a film set for a fictional Tarantino re-make of Russ Meyer’s cult film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! in which the visitors are the extras. Viewers will be immersed in something which looks like a film set, smells like a film set and feels like a film set – this detailed reconstruction will even feature a catering truck serving sweet tea and bad sandwiches served by gallery staff playing the part of the film crew. There will be auditions taking place in various roped off sections of the space, one of which will be a boxing ring where extras will be sparring with casting agents & directors. There will also be a backdrop of projections taking place throughout the space. There could be indoors and outdoors elements to this experience, depending on the venue.

Susan Forsyth’s Zusammen Choir at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art, 2008 (c) Susan Forsyth

(c) Susan Forsyth

Susan Forsyth

Shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009, Susan Forsyth tweaks the canon, using sculpture, text, participatory performance and short films to re-play the historically significant and the everyday ephemeral.  The skill and craft of sculpture-making is important in her work: she gilds; fabricates industrial sheets; casts in plaster, bronze and iron; organises scratch choirs and ping-pong games.

Susan Forsyth’s Connect10 idea:
I like the idea of creating a large scale candle-lit Zusammen Choir Procession, performed entirely by Museums at Night visitors, the more the better, accompanied by a core of professional musicians. Zusammen means ‘together’ in German, so appropriately the songs being sung will be written by Susan in collaboration with the winning venue to tell the story of its unique cultural history through a collaborative public performance. There will be no rehearsals and critically, no singing skill is required. The procession can involve any route through a village, town or city but will end at the winning venue for a gloriously out-of-tune finale.

Audience (2008) at Art Basel (c) rAndom International

(c) rAndom International

rAndom International

rAndom create artworks and installations that explore behaviour and interaction, often using light and movement. Founded in 2005 by Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch, the studio utilises raw fragments of artificial intelligence to encourage relationships between the converging worlds of animate and inanimate. The studio is based in a converted warehouse in Chelsea, London and today includes a growing team of  diverse talent.

rAndom International’s Connect10 idea:
Given that The Rain Room which we installed at The Barbican took 4 years to develop and execute we’re thinking of something marginally smaller in scale but which affects viewers in a similarly immediate way. For Museums at Night, we’d love to stage a one-off performative intervention that engages the wider public with unforeseen aspects of their own expectations in a highly experimental fashion. We’d like to focus this experience around the elements of nature, in particular water and more specifically the sea and the seaside, and actively invite proposals/ideas. The most exciting aspect of Museums at Night for us is seeing what ideas the venues themselves come up with so we don’t want to provide too much information, rather general ideas!

(c) Gavin Turk

Gavin Turk 

Gavin Turk studied at the Royal College of Art and rose to prominence as one of the infamous Young British Artists.  His sculptures and installations critique the construction of artistic myths of authorship, creativity and genius, often using his own image and signature to address issues surrounding authorship, authenticity and identity. Since 2008, Turk and his partner Deborah Curtis have run a project-based group of artists called The House of Fairy Tales, designed to further educational community projects to support and advocate art.

Gavin Turk’s Connect10 idea:
I’m thinking of creating a giant Magic Flying Carpet experience for visitors, accompanied by an evening of fantastical story-telling and yarn spinning, charting a mystical journey through time and history. This journey could reflect the history and context of any venue/location so could be entirely site specific. Alternatively I like the idea of making a large scale light and sound installation – the more immersive the visitor experience the better – mobilising viewers to participate in a live performance of some kind using hundreds of neon glow sticks.

Holiday Destination (c) Julia Vogl – an artwork that is also a visualisation of data collected from the local community, with colour-coded bottles showing where people intend to spend their holidays

(c) Julia Vogl

Julia Vogl

Winner of the Aesthetical Art Prize and the Catlin Art Prize, the American and British artist has shown as part of the Saatchi and Channel 4 New Sensations exhibition, and was commissioned to make work for The People’s Supermarket. Vogl’s work is committed to reflecting the community site it is placed in, with a record of scaling buildings including the 40 front windows of Mudd Library in Ohio; HOME, a self-initiated Cultural Olympiad project for Peckham Community in London; and most recently HOLIDAY DESTINATION, for Silver Spring Maryland Shopping mall plaza.

Julia Vogl’s Connect10 idea:
I could create a huge interactive multi-coloured map of a community using 10,000+ vessels (glass, ceramic, plastic, metal, balloon) that can contain water. The vessels could be gathered/donated by the public in the months leading up to the event, at which point I will invite visitors to colour the water with local pigments, natural colour resources or food colouring. Ideally this map could be seen from alternate perspectives in the space. The colour-coding and demographic content will be based on a subject of key interest/relevance to the venue, site and/or location. For this particular idea to work we’ll require a large forum to lay out the work (not necessarily horizontally) and the venue must be able to help me collect thousands of recycled or locally sourced vessels. The details of how we make this interactive installation site-specific are completely up for discussion.

False Ceiling (1995) (c) Richard Wentworth

Richard Wentworth (c) Cutler & Gross

Richard Wentworth

Richard Wentworth has played a leading role in New British Sculpture since the end of the 70s. His work has altered the traditional definition of sculpture as well as photography, subversively transforming and manipulating industrial and/or found objects into works of art. In his photography, as in the ongoing series Making Do and Getting By, Wentworth documents the everyday, paying attention to objects, occasional and involuntary geometries as well as uncanny situations that often go unnoticed.

Richard Wentworth’s Connect10 idea:
I’d like to explore how things are assembled, not just physically, with objects and collections, but socially, with people. As an exercise of mass observation, I’ve always wanted to kidnap an entire tube, train, bus, or tram at a random moment to find out who’s on it, where they’re going and why. Alternatively, feeding my deep interest in the history of social protest I’d like to somehow stage a silent riot which would require the participation of several hundred visitors in a large public space. Whatever the outcome of this collaboration, it will relate specifically to the compass of what the museum or gallery does.

Making the Connection at the Tabernacle (c) Julian Wild – a touring communal sculpture project in which members of the public can add to a large scale sculpture constructed from plastic plumbers pipe

(c) Julian Wild

Julian Wild 

Julian Wild has exhibited in a range of spaces including the Victoria & Albert Museum, and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2005. The linear structures that he makes either explore the boundaries of a pre-determined shape or the space that they exist in. His sculptures are often based on the history of the site and reference functional processes and systems. Wild is interested in construction and manufacturing ranging from the functional (e.g. stainless steel handrails) to decorative processes such as japanning. Lately he has created a series of sculptures that are three-dimensional doodles.

Julian Wild’s Connect10 idea:
My favourite idea so far is to create a unique glow-in-the-dark version of ‘Making the Connection’, using white plastic tubing and luminous paint. Members of the public will actually be responsible for assembling this piece of sculpture and at the end of the night the lights in whichever museum or space we’re in will be turned off to reveal a glowing masterpiece. The possibilities regarding the shape and scale of this event depend entirely on the spaces in a venue and if a venue has interesting suggestions as to how this can be applied, I’m very keen to discuss ideas.

Download this information as a 4 page PDF to share

The Connect10 competition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

The Connect10 competition returns: win an artist and funding towards your Museums at Night event

We’re delighted to announce that the Connect10 competition is back for Museums at Night 2013: your museum or gallery could win one of ten top contemporary artists and a financial subsidy for your Museums at Night event!

In 2013 there will be a share of £35,000 available to pay for venues to work with artists to devise outstanding events.

Any cultural or heritage venue in the country can submit an event idea, forty will be shortlisted to go through to the public vote, and all shortlisted venues that don’t win an artist will be supported, through small grants, to go ahead with a Museums at Night event.

The ten artists taking part are:

• Jake and Dinos Chapman, irreverent Turner Prize nominees whose provocative sculptures were part of the infamous Young British Artist exhibitions Brilliant! and Sensation. They recently caused controversy by drawing on watercolours believed to have been painted by Hitler.
• Martin Creed, artist and musician who won the 2001 Turner Prize for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off.
• Mat Collishaw, photographer and video innovator known for his hard-hitting images of beauty and cruelty, who has created adult zoetropes, photographed himself trying to catch fairies, and used phosphorescent paint to convey the brief lives of Victorian street children.
• Cullinan Richards, the sculpture and filmmaking partnership of Charlotte Cullinan and Jeanine Richards, who work with fiction, personal histories and live performance.
• Susan Forsyth, London-based sculptor who creates large geometric works such as Wiff-Waff, an enormous gilded ping-pong table inviting visitors to play and make up their own rules.
• Random International, digital artists and sculptors whose current astounding installation Rain Room at the Barbican invites visitors to walk through a ‘wet room’ yet not get wet!
• Gavin Turk, who created the travelling art circus House of Fairy Tales which has delighted families in unusual places ranging from literary festivals to Camp Bestival.
• Julia Vogl, creator of social sculpture, architectural interventions and colourful public engagement projects.
• Richard Wentworth, British sculpture and installation artist, curator and (back in the day) Damien Hirst’s teacher.
• Julian Wild, sculptor and creator of the Making the Connection communal sculpture construction project.

Join the fun! Susan Forsyth’s Zusammen Choir at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art, 2008 (c) Susan Forsyth

The money:

Winning venues receive a bursary of £2000 to support their event, enabling ambitious and creative event programming. The venues who come in second place will receive a £200 bursary towards their alternative Museums at Night events, while those who come third and fourth will receive £100 each, helping everyone to be part of the festival.

How to take part:

If you’re interested in entering the Connect10 competition, which always leads to a lot of publicity and which can be a terrific audience development vehicle, your next steps are:

1) Download our simple at-a-glance Connect10 essentials guide and the detailed Connect10 information pack for venues to read through and discuss with your team. You can also download the terms and conditions for participating venues to make sure you understand what’s expected if you take part.

2) The 10 participating artists have shared statements explaining their approach to Connect10, their inspiration and how they work. Take a look and decide which artist you’re interested in bringing to your venue, and what sort of event you’d like to stage with them.

3) Once you have buy-in from everyone in your organisation, it’s time to enter your event idea. There’s a simple form for you to submit your event ideas online here: this will close at 5pm on Thursday 31 January 2013.

When filling in the form, as well as your contact details and artist selection, we’ll be asking you to outline more about your event idea.

We recommend you write out your responses to this before you go to the submission form, as you can’t save your progress and return to it: if you don’t complete the form within one browser session you will need to start a new one.

Questions will include:

• Your reason for choosing this particular artist, and the connections you see between their work and your venue, collections or location (maximum 100 words)
• Details of the event: what will happen, the format it will take, how it will involve audience participation, whereabouts in your venue it will take place, and any other information you want to tell us (maximum 200 words)
• The type of audience you’re aiming to attract with this event (maximum 100 words)
• A very basic budget outline explaining what you will spend the £2000 prize money on (maximum 100 words) – don’t forget that the artist’s fee, travel and accommodation costs will already be covered, but you’ll need to budget for the artists’ materials.

The event submission form is here: https://culture24.wufoo.eu/forms/connect10-event-submission-form-2013/

If you’d like to discuss your plans with Nick or Rosie first, we’re only a phonecall away on 01273 623279 and 01273 623336.

Thanks – and the very best of luck!

The Connect10 competition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Watch Polly Morgan’s Connect10 taxidermy demonstration at Victoria Gallery & Museum

The Connect10 competition, where museums and galleries could win a top contemporary artist for their Museums at Night event, was a great success in 2012. Venues tried lots of new event ideas, and attracted both new audiences and lapsed attenders.

One of the most unusual events was a live demonstration of taxidermy by Polly Morgan, held at Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum.

Receiver (c) Polly Morgan

The museum decided to give a group of student filmmakers the opportunity to record the taxidermy demonstration: their 4 minute highlights reel includes the artist talking about her inspiration and close-ups showing the incredibly detailed work.

Videos can be a great way of recording and sharing what happens at one-off events. Are there ways that your venue could capture the atmosphere at your events – perhaps by filming what’s happening, recording short interviews with the curators or artists involved, or asking simple vox pop questions to your visitors?

It’s worth considering this in advance, and finding out whether you can call on anyone local with the skills and equipment to help you out.

Event review: Connect10 brings Jon McGregor to RRS Discovery

Today I’m happy to share a couple of guest posts reviewing Museums at Night events from the weekend! The first comes from Mark Macleod, who wrote for us previously about how Museums at Night collaborates with the Festival of Museums.

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What should you expect when attending a Museums at Night event? Should research be done in advance? Is it appropriate to bring your parents? A number of questions I considered before attending the Connect10 winning event at the RRS Discovery in Dundee with author Jon McGregor presiding.

I’m not totally ignorant about the southern hemisphere, having visited RRS Discovery a number of times and enjoyed learning more about the travelers who used her.

When I heard that McGregor was going to talk about his residency with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) it was definitely something I wanted to attend. A couple of scientist friends of mine have gathered data in Antarctica and I was very keen to hear how an artist’s residency worked, and discover the experience of someone expanding their comfort zone in harsh environment for subjective art rather than objective science.

McGregor immediately set the mood arriving with music and a video playing what looked like my earlier journey from St Andrews to Dundee, but which I’m guessing was his rainy trip towards RAF Brize Norton for the RAF flight to the Falkland Islands.

Jon McGregor’s suitcase of props (c) Mark MacLeod

A brief setting up of props and the story began, from the self-titled traveling salesman. We heard about his flight and transfer to the boat RRS James Clark Ross at Port Stanley, which was to be his home until they reached the BAS base in Antarctica.

Daily pictures from the top deck provided an indication of the beauty, isolation and general sublime nature of the open sea and finally the approach with icebergs.

McGregor was constantly creating work, sending 100 word emails daily to friends and associates containing his latest news and thoughts. Before current technologies reached the BAS ship travellers were able to send one 100 word telegram every week – it really was a place to get away from it all – but now the ship is hooked up to the internet, and McGregor wanted to reflect on this development.

The final image he shared was the most poignant: the ship had been breaking through the ice layer and was now only 80 miles from the base, but the ice was thicker than usual and the captain took the difficult decision to abandon the attempt and return to Stanley to refuel and try again later in the summer.

The scientists would wait on the Falklands and expect to try again after Christmas, but McGregor would fly home. He was genuinely disappointed by the ‘so near and yet so far’ nature of the trip and although he has yet to produce an “artistic work” from the journey, he doesn’t blame his not reaching Antarctica.

Before and during the trip McGregor read memoirs, diaries and other recollections of previous adventurers to the South Pole and his observation was that on the trip down everyone was calm, factual and generally preparing themselves for the unexpected.

Even now he claims it is extremely difficult, possibly impossible, to describe such an environment as this place. What adjectives and nouns can be used for an experience and landscape that has been shared by so few?

Author Jon McGregor, about to startle Mark and his parents with a reading (c) Mark Macleod

The final part of the evening was McGregor reading from his latest publication This isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You which amused, stunned and made me regress several years and squirm as I sat beside my parents.

The most memorable piece was ‘Looking up Vagina’ which proved the hit of the night, and which McGregor explained was written after learning his friend (now a poet) read the dictionary from start to finish as a teenager.

As Sesame Street might say, “Today was brought to you by the letter V and the number (Connect) 10.” I for one am glad to have voted and secured McGregor’s  visit to Dundee.

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Mark Macleod is Operations and Projects Curator at the Museum of the University of St Andrews: you can follow them on Twitter as @MUSA_StAndrews.

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Thanks Mark! If you went to a Museums at Night event, please let us know your thoughts by filling in this survey, so we can improve the festival in future years.

Further tips on raising awareness from museums and galleries

This is the fifth in our series of posts highlighting how venues vying to win an artist in our Connect10 competition are raising awareness about the public vote among their local communities. If you’re involved in audience development or marketing, the ideas we’re sharing may be useful!

The three venues competing for installation artist and sculptor Susan Stockwell are Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery.

Where will you send Susan for Museums at Night? Cast your vote here.

Elaine Lees, Communications Officer at Creativity Works reports on Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery‘s Connect10 publicity:

To drum up support we’ve taken a digital approach, mainly posting news stories on websites and using social networking and email to spread the word. Old friends and new are showing their support, and local newspapers and BBC Radio Lancashire have also encouraged people to vote.

News of our Susan Stockwell bid has appeared across the websites of Creativity Works, Artsmap, Blackburn Life, the local council Chief Executive’s blog, the council intranet, the Perspectives of Pennine Lancashire Visual Arts network and more!

Now we just need to enlist the help of the hundreds of thousands of Blackburn Rovers supporters…

Lucy Theobald, Marketing and Press Coordinator at the Fitzwilliam Museum, reports:

We’ve sent out a press release about our bid for Susan Stockwell, together with the bid of one of our partner museums: the Polar Museum are also in the running to win novelist Jon McGregor. Combining the two bids makes more of a story for local media: here’s an article that appeared in Cambridge News.

There’s a news story going out in our local paper, and we’ve also been pushing the story online through our social media channels, Twitter and Facebook.

Wolverhampton Art Gallery report:

We’ve also sent out press releases to the local media, and are raising awareness online through our own website, Twitter and Facebook.

We’ve also added a line about the competition into our email signatures, along with a link to the voting page!

Vote in Susan Stockwell’s Connect10 poll here on Culture24 – where will you send her?

The competition is open until Monday March 5th, and the winning venue will be announced on Tuesday March 6th.

More top publicity tips from arts and heritage venues attracting competition votes

This is the fourth post in our series for arts marketers highlighting what venues competing to win a top artist for Museums at Night are doing to reach out to their audiences. So far, it seems that press releases to local media combined with the use of social media and email newsletters are the most popular tactics.

The three venues competing for top taxidermist Polly Morgan are Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust in Bristol; Yorkshire Museum and Gardens, York and Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum.

Where will you send Polly for Museums at Night? Cast your vote here.

Kim Fisher, Visitor Services Assistant at the Victoria Gallery & Museum reports:

We’ve been using Twitter and Facebook heavily, and contacted our email list. We’ve also printed leaflets to put around the gallery for visitors to see.

Our Education Officer Kirsty has told her contacts at the universities, and teachers who may be interested.

Finally, all our admin staff have added a link to the vote into our email signatures!

Lee Clark, Media Co-ordinator at York Museums Trust reports:

We’ve contacted all our staff as well as our mailing list, and are also spreading the word through Twitter, Facebook and our blog.

We’re also concocting an idea for a photocall to capture the press’s attention – watch this space!

Felicia Smith, Public Engagement Manager at Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust reports:

We’ve sent out press releases and have lined up a joint interview with ss Great Britain (who are hoping to win jellymongers Bompas & Parr in Connect10) on Bristol Community Radio on Saturday. The aim is to get Bristol people voting for two amazing artists to be brought to the city, not just one!

We’ve shared our press release with our planned event partners M Shed / Bristol Museums & Gallery and WildOwl, and Bristol Natural History Forum who are our partners for the Bioblitz event happening the weekend after Museums at Night. If we win the Connect10 competition, we hope to use Arnos Vale’s wildlife to link these two free events together.

We’ve set up a webpage for competition news, and are using Twitter and Facebook: we’re really grateful that other local organisations are supporting us on their pages too.

Vote in Polly Morgan’s Connect10 poll here on Culture24 – where will you send her?

The competition is open until Monday March 5th, and the winning venue will be announced on Tuesday March 6th.

Top publicity tips from arts and heritage venues attracting competition votes

This is our third article highlighting the promotional work of the venues vying to win artists in our Connect10 competition – there are all manner of useful ideas for publicity and audience development emerging, many of which are cheap or free to do.

Three venues are competing to win installation artist and signpainter Bob & Roberta Smith: Eastbourne’s Towner Art Gallery; Leeds Art Gallery; and the Peace Museum in Bradford.

Where will you send Bob & Roberta for Museums at Night? Cast your vote here.

Gilly Clarkson, Marketing & Communications Manager at Towner, reports:

We sent a press release to local media, and have been promoting extensively through our Facebook and Twitter feeds and email list – as well as featuring the competition on the homepage of our website with a link straight to the voting page!

We’re proactively reaching out to all our visitors, especially during half term week and our Sunday family day. Plus we’ve been encouraging partners and supporters to spread the word on our behalf – for example Eastbourne Tourism and Visit Sussex (as we are the only Sussex attraction on the list).

Amanda Phillips, Education Officer at Leeds Art Gallery, reports:

Trying everything, I managed to raise our share of votes from 10% to 24% by emailing everyone I know (didn’t know I knew so many people!)

It has gone on to our Breeze Culture Network which is the main portal to teachers and group leaders interested in creative activity, and to our press/marketing contact within Leeds City Council, our website, and within the Gallery itself. These are all passive means of communication, but all that is available within protocol and resources. Happily our tweets are getting out and about!

Julie Obermeyer, Curate and Manager of the Peace Museum, reports:

We’ve done the following to promote our bid in the competition:

1) Tweeted about it on our Twitter account

2) Sent out an e-mail message to all our supporters

3) Wrote about it on our website

4) Promoted it on our Facebook page

Vote in Bob & Roberta Smith’s Connect10 poll here on Culture24 – where will you send him?

The competition is open until Monday March 5th, and the winning venue will be announced on Tuesday March 6th.

Connect10: How are London’s Ragged School Museum and the Museum of Soho competing for Terry O’Neill?

In our second article highlighting the promotional and outreach efforts of venues involved in the Connect10 competition, we look at the two London venues vying to win iconic photographer Terry O’Neill – the Museum of Soho and the Ragged School Museum.

Where will you send Terry for Museums at Night? Cast your vote here.

 Tony Shrimplin, Chair of the Museum of Soho, reports:

As soon as we heard we were finalists in this years Museums at Night Connect10 competition our trustees and volunteers swung into action. This is our first time and it’s going to be memorable!

We initially set about using our mailing lists letting Friends of the Museum, colleagues and associates know we needed their vote and for them to forward the info to as many people as they could, hopefully creating a snowball effect.

Social media has been key in getting our events promoted, we have a Twitter page and were able to announce we were finalists pretty quickly. Facebook has also been used by our friends and families to promote our event.

We really are a community group and were able to enlist people power from burlesque dancers to window cleaners, businesses and residents who have all helped us spread the word.

We also have a unique resource in the West End in having a large, interactive, touch screen in Sherwood Street W1. The screen promotes the area by having galleries and articles showing Soho in a historic context. It’s a local amenity that residents and visitors alike are invited to submit content to. We announced the event on our screen and added a QR code directly linking smart phones to the voting site, so that passers by could take part in the public vote.

Our local newspaper The West End Extra has been notified and we expect something in this week’s edition.

I persuaded one of our trustees to dress up as a woman (not very difficult) and canvass for votes on Friday night, but alas no one batted an eye – this is Soho after all.

I however have been walking up and down Dean Street over the week-end with gorgeous burlesque girls on each arm in my fur coat. When asked about our poll position I was left stumped! But that’s another story…

This has been a great exercise for us, as we’ve never had to move so quickly and it is great to see the support we can get when needed.

Erica Davies, Director of the Ragged School Museum, reports:

To galvanise our advocates to vote for us and spread the word, we began by emailing our friends and supporters.

We’ve sent press releases out not only to our local newspapers but also to a TV programme – aiming high!

We’re using Twitter and Facebook to maintain interest in the competition and remind people about how they can vote.

An example of how the Ragged School Museum use their Facebook page to interact with their fans

We’re also very thankful for Twitter as it’s a great shortcut to talk with people: when we had a dramatic water leak last week (it was like a fountain) Twitter was the only place we could go to. Very soon we had loads of suggestions and recommendations for plumbers, and the problem’s been sorted out now!

Vote in Terry O’Neill’s Connect10 poll here – where will you send him?

The competition is open until Monday March 5th, and the winning venue will be announced on Tuesday March 6th.