Preparing the Exhibition
STANDARD: Establish measures that protect the safety and conservation of works and objects and ensure safe working environments for staff and volunteers.
Minimum Practice
Tour organisers and hosts are responsible for the care of objects and the safety of workers and volunteers involved in touring exhibitions, as outlined in contracts and agreements. The model Work Health and Safety Act (2011) and Victorian equivalent Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) both establish compulsory minimum standards to protect the health and safety of people within the workplace, requiring the identification of risks, and the responsibility to eliminate or minimise risks so far as reasonably practicable. Contractual arrangements must clearly define duty of care, liability, and responsibilities relating to damage, injury, and compensation.
Best Practice
Adding to work, health and safety (WHS) obligations and contractual duty of care, best practice requires proactively designing touring exhibitions for safe travel and display. Best practice also considers environmental sustainability, the durability of exhibition materials, and the inclusion of practical support to ensure the exhibition is presented at the desired standard while also avoiding physical or financial burden for host venues and their staff and volunteers.
Guidance
Ensuring the exhibition is ready to travel between locations takes a lot of care and some creative solutions.
Thinking about how a work or object will be protected through the touring process is essential. Packing and crating can be expensive, but necessary, so considering both the financial and environmental cost of how an exhibition travels is important. Using provided facility reports from Host Venues can assist in better understanding their capacity and can inform questions regarding crating, transport, and storage.
Crating & packing
Where soft packing artworks or objects may be appropriate for a singular showing, oftentimes touring exhibitions necessitate a more robust form of protection to ensure safety in transport and storage. Just getting from ‘A’ to ‘B’ may require a protective outer shell, within which internal padding or fixing devices may also be necessary, as well as consideration of how the packaging will survive being opened and closed multiple times over many iterations. Creating a safe and secure environment for the artworks/objects in a tour to ensure they are conserved may involve contracting specialists and some creative thinking. Crating can be expensive, so it is wise to approach this element early in the preparation process. Ask for quotes from cratemakers and packaging specialists, and reach out to sector peers to see if crates can be recycled/retrofitted for your needs. Crate manufacturers or conservators may be able to create custom internal structures to protect artworks or objects.
Household items may also be able to be utilised. Thinking about sustainability in the use and reuse of crating is a best practice consideration.
Crates can also cause Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) concerns if they are too large, unwieldly, or require lifting heavy items overhead. Thinking about access to artworks, castors for rolling, latches for opening, cleats for forklift or pallet jack access, and the size of building openings are a key part of crating design. Talking to venues about their loading dock access and internal pathways to exhibition spaces (such as corridors, corners, elevators, stairs etc), and to freight companies about the features of their trucks, are necessary pre-tour conversations.
Crate construction and materials are also important considerations. Long, multiple venue tours will require well- constructed, durable crates to withstand the rigors of handling, temperature fluctuations, and transit, compared to tours which may travel to two or three venues. For exhibitions traveling internationally, crates must be ISPM- 15 compliant (heat-treated wood) and certified by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and be easily accessible for customs inspections.
Biosecurity
Biosecurity is an important consideration when travelling exhibitions containing organic materials across state/territory borders, with many states imposing strict movement restrictions on items like soil, timber, and plant material to prevent the spread of pests. These requirements are governed nationally by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and managed state-by-state. Interstate movement and temporary importation of organic, agricultural, or live exhibition materials demand strict risk assessments, quarantine protocols, and approved permits. Touring internationally attracts additional customs and clearance requirements.
Transport
What the transport of your touring exhibition looks like will differ depending on the contents and needs. If your tour requires an artwork transport company, a logistics itinerary will need to be provided to each carrier to generate a quote. A logistics itinerary should include the size of your exhibition once packed and the dates between venues to indicate collection and delivery timeframes between deinstall and install. In most cases it will need to be dedicated freight (only your exhibition is on the truck), but at times shared trucks can be utilised between more commonly travelled routes. Asking the artists, conservators, or lenders about the climate control requirements of the artworks and objects are important conservation questions that will need to be relayed to freight carriers and factored into their quotes, as will any special strapping or protective requirements within the truck. If there is a gap between presentations and the venues are unable to hold the exhibition in their facilities, most artwork transport companies can also include quotes for storage, both climate and non-climate controlled.
Your tour may simply include artwork files that can be sent digitally or may be able to be packed into small plastic tubs and sent via a courier. Couriers often require you to create an account, and may not have pathways to every location, so it is good to check the services available and ensure you understand their transport systems and timelines before engaging one. It is advised to have a few extra weeks between deinstall at one location and install at the next to account for missed pickups and deliveries. This buffer will necessitate making sure venues can store the exhibition in this in-between period. If your tour is within a drivable distance and you have access to a vehicle with the appropriate climate control for your exhibition, weighing up the cost to you or your organisation of transporting the exhibition yourselves may prove to be a more cost-effective and sustainable solution. It is then important to check your insurance policy, as this may stipulate that any art or object freight movements are carried out by professional art/object handlers and freight agencies.
Installation Inclusions
When planning a touring exhibition, it is helpful to consider how the installation process can be simplified for repeat presentation. Deciding early how much aesthetic consistency is required may inform whether exhibition furniture, hanging systems, tools, or specialist fixings are included in the touring package. For example, if a level laser would make installing paintings at the same height easier, a specific-sized hex key is needed to open a crate, or a video work requires visually unintrusive seating, purchasing and sending along these elements can support consistent installation outcomes across venues. Hardcopy installation manuals should be included with every exhibition to instruct the venue on how to install the exhibition.
For exhibitions with technical components, it may be appropriate to rely on venue-supplied equipment, such as projectors and televisions. However, where certain auditory or visual requirements are critical, providing pre-programmed or calibrated technology can help maintain curatorial intent. With the inclusion of tech comes the need to also supply back-ups, such as spare media players or extra projector lamps, which does add to the cost and footprint of your offering. Note that sending more equipment for consistent exhibition design come with freighting, financial, and environmental implications.
Environmental requirements such as lighting or wall treatments may also form part of installation planning and should be decided in conversation with host venues in advance, taking into account venue capacity, ability to fix to walls, staff time, off-gassing, and sustainability considerations. You may choose to send an installer or staff member to assist with the installation at each venue. This may be necessary if you are traveling to volunteer-run organisations or to spaces that do not have the required professional staff members to fulfill the installation requirements within the necessary timeline.
Insurances
Ensuring all parties have the appropriate insurances is the responsibility of everyone involved. It is important to clearly allocate where insurance responsibilities fall in every stage of a touring exhibition (pre-tour, transport, storage, in venues) within loan and venue agreements. Consider whether you require: Exhibition Insurance; Transit insurance; Public liability insurance; Workers’ compensation insurance; Professional Indemnity Insurance; and/or Care, Custody and Control Insurance.
Often insurances are covered by the tour organiser when the exhibition is in transit and by the host venue when in the premises of the host venue. During storage, insurance may be covered by the storage company, by the tour organiser, or even by the host venue, depending on the location and agreements. While these form a usual pattern of insurances, using non-traditional venues may shift where insurance responsibility and liability lands.
So that all parties can communicate with their insurers, documenting the values of artworks/objects in loan and venue agreements is important. Artists and creatives may require their own insurances to deliver public programming, and external contractors, or staff travelling with the exhibition will need to ensure their insurances cover them for the activity of the tour. Making sure all insurance needs are considered and put into contractual agreements is necessary.
Ready To Use Support
NETS Australia – Checklist for contacting cratemakers
A checklist with considerations and possible inclusions to help with contacting cratemakers to provide quotes.
Templates for communicating with a cratemaker are included at the end of this resource.
NETS Australia – Checklist for contacting freight carriers
A checklist with considerations and possible inclusions to help with contacting artwork freight carriers to provide quotes. A template for a multivenue tour quote is included at the end of this resource.
NAVA – Risk Assessment Factsheet
The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) Risk Management Factsheet has been designed to help detail and mitigate any potential risks that might arise through the development and implementation of a project/event or the running of an organisation.
M&G NSW – Audio Visual Setups for Exhibitions
Written by Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW), this resource looks at the advantages of different media players. It also provides a quick and easy guide on how to install and troubleshoot the most common types of projectors. This document can be added to an Exhibition Information Pack as a part of a touring exhibition.
NAVA – Membership Insurance
The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) Membership gives you access to combined Professional Indemnity, Products and Public Liability and Personal Accident Insurance.
Duck for Cover – Membership Insurance
Duck is a not-for-profit association set up to provide Public Liability and other insurance policies for their performer and artist members. They offer Public Liability Cover, Personal Accident Cover, Performing Equipment Cover, and Professional Indemnity Cover.
Useful Resources & Further Reading
Arts Law – Liability and Insurance
An information sheet by the Arts Law Centre of Australia explaining liability, risk management and insurance.
Safe Work Australia – Model Work Health and Safety Act
A national framework by Safe Work Australia setting minimum health and safety duties, rights, enforcement to protect workers and workplaces.
Australian Interstate Quarantine
Learn interstate quarantine rules to prevent pests, protect environments, and avoid fines when touring content in Australia.
DAFF – Exhibitions, sporting, cultural and other events
Information from Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) on how to plan event imports, meet biosecurity requirements, clean and declare equipment, and organise clearance before entering Australia.
Heritage Collections Council – reCollections – Handling, Transportation, Storage and Display reCollections: Caring for Collections Across Australia provides practical advice and guidance designed to help care for heritage collections. This resource provides guidance for safely handling, storing, transporting, and displaying collection items to prevent damage and deterioration.
M&G NSW – Supplier List
This list complied by Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW) aims to assist museums and galleries in New South Wales in sourcing services, materials, and equipment. These listings are not by any means exhaustive and will continue to grow over time.
M&G QLD – Consultant & Supplier Register
This list, complied by Museums & Galleries Queensland (M&G QLD), suggests consultants and suppliers for various services within the museums and gallery sector, including design, conservation, technical support, and cratemaking.
PGAV – Suppliers List
This list is hosted by the Public Galleries Association Victoria is designed to assist public galleries across Victoria source suitable equipment, materials, and services for their gallery operations.
Further questions or
broken links?
Contact your State
or Territory NETS Australia agency