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You are: Back Room > 'Art Premiere', 'First Call', 'Art Statements', 'New Contemporaries', 'Frame' ... what can you learn from art fair organisers?
'Art Premiere', 'First Call', 'Art Statements', 'New Contemporaries', 'Frame' ... what can you learn from art fair organisers?
Art fairs have seen a tremendous growth in the last decade. Some organisers could easily have boosted their art fair up to 500 participants, or more, based on the number of applicants. But they were smarter. They not only limited the number of participants, they offered extra guidance on top when they noticed how rapidly visitors felt lost during their visit. This feeling of getting lost pops up even faster on a gallery's site.
Uncertainty is the number one killer on gallery sites
When you confront people with too many choices, like the hundreds of galleries at an art fair or tens of artists on an artists' page, they are lost and start going around in circles. Without immediate guidance, their indecisiveness grows by the second. Only seconds later their uncertainty turns into fatigue and abandonment, because it's all too much.
Art fair organizers introduced some smart changes
When they noticed the signs of 'art fair fatigue' they were confronted with a conundrum of sorts. Reducing the number of galleries would affect their turnover. But maintaining the size of the fair to its limits without any change was no longer viable either. How to eliminate art fair fatigue without reducing the number of galleries?
To solve the problem they reverted to a proven technique.
Nothing more obvious to eat a cake than to slice it
By introducing sections such as 'Art Premiere', 'First Call', 'Frame', etc., organisers discovered a win-win for visitors and galleries alike.
The number of galleries per section became not only tailored to what visitors can take, but each section also targeted a specific audience. Some visitors look mainly for emerging galleries or new talents, while others remain with the established galleries and renowned names.
Cutting the art fair in distinct, appealing sections made it easier to 'plan' the visit and to focus on the segment(s) that had the visitors’ main interest.
Sectioning also added to the success of the fair’s participants because galleries now have better chances to welcome more targeted and prospective visitors in their booths.
In technical jargon: by creating sections organisers stimulated the 'conversion'
Art fair organisers are very well aware how important 'conversion' is to the success of an art fair. By offering this extra guidance they broke down the first major hurdle each visitor is confronted with when entering: uncertainty.
'Conversion' plays an even more important role on your gallery's site
Especially on your artists' page. You can't assist or react to your visitor's behaviour on the spot as in your real world gallery. You have to stay one step ahead and be sure to make their visit as easy as possible. A single step that focuses on a single task: take away their uncertainty.
Otherwise, even on your site's scale, 'fatigue' is lurking very quickly.
Web tests show an interesting fact
Usability tests – scanning and analyzing visitors' behaviour on a site - clearly demonstrate two things about visitors:
- they are rapidly perturbed, especially when they don't find immediately what they're looking for.
- they go away when they are confronted with too much information without any supplementary guidance.
Let's look at a random artists' page
On average an artist's page counts fifteen names. Presented 'in bulk' without any distinction, additional information or guidance.
Moreover the navigation of most artists' pages is set up following the burdensome 'silo' approach. The visitor has to go all to way up and down every time he wants to discover another artist's work.
Imagine all the consecutive steps per artist
Look at the roster, pick a name, look at a work, read the information. Go back to the overview, pick a second name, have a look, scan the information, if some element appeals. Go back, pick a third and so on.
Not even the most diehard art enthusiast will look up more than a few artists this way.
It's simply too much clicking, going up and down. While each click adds to their 'fatigue' or frustration when the works don't correspond to their expectations.
As a result instead of looking up a roster in detail, most abandon after two to three random attempts at best.
Sounds excessive because art enthusiasts know better?
Sorry to disappoint you. Once on a site, every visitor expects an easy-going experience. It's not a matter of being 'higher educated', being 'familiar' with the web or with gallery sites' conventions, or being an 'art professional' or 'art enthusiast'.
Web stats show again and again that people respond better and faster – ‘convert’ better when they discover well-structured pages with sizeable chunks of information combined with extra guidance and help. This is why your artists' page is so crucial.
Your artists' page demands even more care and attention than your home page
You have to be sure that as many people will look up as many artists up to the deepest level. And to achieve this you have to put all the chances on your side. As art fair organisers demonstrated successfully. Each edition, they come up with yet another section, a new name, a new initiative.
What is the ultimate goal of your artist's page?
I hope your objective is not just to 'show off' the importance of the many artists in your roster, and abandon your visitors to their own initiative. It would be poor usage of this critical focal point of your gallery's site. You want to 'convert' your visitors; you want them to discover your roster in depth.
So ... slice the cake and give each section an appealing name. And paramount on the web: 'tell' your visitors what they have to do.
Set the stakes as high as possible
Don't expect people to look up your roster without any extra guidance. They won't. Even after all your years on the web, seeing that this is the approach taken by most contemporary art galleries, in my experience this approach is not visitor-friendly enough. They want and need more, otherwise they feel they’ve been abandoned.
To distinguish your site, it's essential to 'guide' your visitors with all the tactics you have at your disposal. Even more so than in the real world. If art organisers continue to invest a tremendous amount of energy in conversion, it's your best guarantee it's well worth the effort.
We will come back to these issues in future articles.
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