Touring Updates & Assessment
STANDARD: Provide opportunities for all parties to be updated and informed during the tour.
Minimum Practice
Tour organisers maintain clear and reliable communication with all stakeholders for the duration of the tour, fulfilling any contractual obligations.
Best Practice
Communication during the tour is used as an active engagement tool that strengthens relationships and encourages shared ownership. Contractual obligations should be met but also built upon to ensure quantitative and demographic data is paired with qualitative information and materials gleaned through surveys, conversations, and online engagement. All requested information for data collection is accompanied by transparent explanations of use and the opportunities to self-identify and opt out.
Guidance
Whether a tour has 2 host venues or 22 host venues, the tour organiser has a responsibility to ensure that every stakeholder is kept up to date with the progress of the exhibition, the condition of the works, and the community reception. The frequency of these communications may depend on stakeholder preferences, council requirements, and/or funding body reporting obligations. One solution to incorporating ‘during tour engagement’ is to have a website page dedicated to the tour that is regularly updated with images and quotes of audience reception. Another option is sending partners an email summary of each iteration including audience numbers and snippets of feedback. This can help create a more positive experience for those involved, especially if they are unable to attend each venue.
Mailing Lists
Most host venues will send out an invitation to your exhibition to their mailing list. It is advised that you include a mailing list in your exhibition information package with key people involved in your tour. With their consent, this could include all the tour hosts, creatives involved, funding bodies, partner organisations, internal staff or board members, relevant media, representative galleries, and even friends and family of the people involved.
Asking the artists, curators, lenders, and/or partners if they would like to add anyone to this mailing list (both post and email) is a great way to keep the relevant people informed of the tour’s movements and programming.
Touring exhibition reviews
After each iteration of your exhibition on tour, asking venues to fill out an exhibition evaluation form or survey is a critical part of the process. These assessments should ask qualitative questions about the content, quality, and reception of your exhibition and your service as a tour organiser, alongside quantitative questions regarding audience numbers, events held in conjunction with your exhibition, and information on demographics relevant to your tour or funding partners and media coverage. These evaluations could be filled out in Word documents, editable PDFs, through an online survey generator, or via audio formats. Photographs with credits of the photographers, as well as collateral created (such as printed flyers or online advertisements) are also important sets of data to collect as the tour progresses. This will also assist with end of tour reporting to stakeholders and acquitting grant funding.
Collecting Demographic Information
Collecting demographic information may be an important metric for your funding or council reporting, but this type of questioning may also raise social and ethical concerns. While it may seem trivial to ask how many people of a certain demographic engaged with your exhibition, these metrics can encourage future investment. For example, indicating how many people over the age of 65 attended a public programming opportunity could be used to apply for funding to produce community-led programming for senior citizens with proven audience demand. Once you have taken into consideration the demographic information you are required to provide, evaluating the language you use, ensuring transparency in planned use, and considering the options you make available (including the possibility of opting out, self-describing, and choosing multiple identifiers) is vital.
Consultation with the referenced groups can be useful to ensure that you use inclusive and accessible language.
It is also important to note that while you may be required to report on how many First Nations, culturally or linguistically diverse people, or people who identify as gender diverse engaged with your exhibition, that the host venues will not always be able to provide this data because they are not questions that can be asked of every visitor and visual estimation should not be used to identify participants. Instead, applying demographic questions to events requiring a booking, or looking at how many people from specific demographics can provide consultation or be employed within your project, may be a better way to show meaningful engagement with various communities beyond attendance figures.
Social Media Posts
Most organisations have social media accounts. Checking their social media regularly to collect interactions and posts can assist with the end of tour reporting at the conclusion of the exhibition.
Ready To Use Support
NETS Australia – Exhibition Review Survey
This template will provide examples of key questions that could be included in an end of presentation review/survey during a tour.
Useful Resources & Further Reading
Countess Report – Clear Expectations
‘Clear Expectations: Guidelines for Institutions, Galleries and Curators Working with Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Diverse Artists’ was commissioned by Countess Report and supported by NAVA. The guide was compiled by artists Spence Messih and Archie Barry, and was copy-edited by Bobuq Sayed and proofread by EO Gill. It is a non-exhaustive overview of suggested best practice for art spaces ranging from artist run initiatives to larger institutes, when working with trans, non-binary and gender diverse creatives.
Countess Report, 2022
Co-edited by Miranda Samuels and Shevaun Wright, this report provides an in-depth view of gender and First Nations in/equity in the arts, with an aim to encourage meaningful support, representation, and employment of underrepresented groups within the arts.
Reconciliation Australia: Demonstrating inclusive and respectful language
A guide produced by Reconciliation Australia on the appropriate language and terms to use when speaking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as where to seek guidance.
Further questions or
broken links?
Contact your State
or Territory NETS