Hard Work Pays Off for Pinellas County Coordinators

With a small drop in participation in 2013, co-coordinator Sarah Markovski proactively reached out to the NAP to discuss their plans for boosting interest in their 2014 exhibit.  Along with co-coordinator Mary Kvam, they decided the first step would be to change the time of year when the show was scheduled to hang.  By moving the exhibit from its usually planned time in January to June, they hoped that the extra time and distance from the holidays would provide people with more time to create artwork.  The second step Sarah and Mary took was adding county volunteers to the eligible pool of participants, an addition that proved to be a great idea.  Sarah commented that, “it was a big hit with several of the volunteers actually receiving awards.”

In addition to starting their advertising numerous months in advance, Sarah and Mary made sure that each artist was reached by personally inviting them to the awards reception on June 30th.  Each artist was handed an invitation to the awards reception when dropping their artwork off at the courthouse lobby.  This special touch not only added the professional element that an artist would expect to receive when having their artwork exhibited in a real gallery space, but it also served as a second way to remind participants when the awards ceremony would be taking place.  Even a small detail such as this can make such a big difference.  For Pinellas County, Florida, it meant that the majority of the winners were on hand to accept their awards during the presentation.

In the end, all of Sarah and Mary’s attention to these little details and hard work paid off with a 28% increase in participation for their 8th Annual NAP Show.  Both coordinators believe that the show will only continue to grow in size and with dynamic duo in charge, the NAP is sure it will too!