Returning to the Live Spring Fling Experience

Spring Fling Open Studios is back in the physical world again – having been virtual-only for the past 2 years.

It was the 20th year of the event, and this year, instead of the usual last Saturday to Monday in May, it was moved to the first Thursday to Sunday in June, to tie in with the extra national bank holidays due to the Royal Platinum Jubilee.

Maggie and I are not royalists. We've nothing personal against Her Maj – I'm sure she's a lovely person – it's just the office she represents doesn't sit well with us. Quite simply, the idea that someone is born to rule over the rest of us, and we should all doff our caps in respect to that privilege is bollocks of the highest order.

However, Maggie and I were neither born to positions of power, nor have we acquired it during our lives, so what we say or think on the matter makes not one iota of difference to the world, other than it meant we didn't have Union Jack bunting hanging over the studio door (rebels or what?)

I used the same space to welcome visitors, display my photos, and do photography demonstrations, as I did 3 years ago (See https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2019/05/spring-fling-studio-50-on-orange-route.html). My friends, Carolyn & Ken, have converted an outbuilding (I think it might originally have been a cow byre), that has a waterproof roof, lighting, and power sockets.

It's the size of a small village hall – way bigger than I actually need - so this time Maggie shared the space with me.

It was the first time we've ever exhibited together, which is hardly surprising given our very different modes of creative expression.

Maggie paints abstract art, while I create cinematic and theatrical style narrative photography. Not natural gallery companions, but it was quite interesting to see our work hung in the same space.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to do my usual weekly live video podcast, Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres, on the Sunday, so I thought I would make an attempt at some other social media stuff.

During the setting up of the space I did 2 “YouTube Shorts”, where you can do something up to 15 seconds long.

I intended to do more, but to be honest I kept forgetting. I was in Spring Fling mode, not talk-to-the-camera mode. Besides, 15 seconds isn't a lot for a man who is used to talking non stop for over an hour every Sunday at 3pm into a webcam.

Needless to say at the end of each day I'd suddenly think of all the things I could have done, but back in the studio space they would all shoot out of my head again.

One of the things I really should have created a short film of was our daughter, Meg, who was also with us. She'd done some home-baking as an extra level of hospitality for visitors, with a wee jar for donations towards to the Castle Douglas Food Bank. Across the event she raised £67 and received a huge number of delightful compliments.

It was difficult to guess how many visitors we would have. In 2019 I received around 200 over the event. With Maggie in the same space, I felt we could expect at least double that. Although there would be some overlap of people who would naturally have visited our studios separately, there is also the "hub effect" in Spring Fling.

With 90+ studios to visit across a county more than 125 miles from one end to the other, it's impossible to see all of them. And no one wants to spend more time in the car than they are in the studios. So the places where there are more than one artist or maker tend to get exponentially more visitors, and the further off the beaten track you are, the fewer you can expect.

So while post-Covid caution and rising fuel costs might have reduced numbers a bit, having the 2 of us in the same space should have counteracted that.

We opened the doors on Thursday, and it was pretty quiet. We had a total of 24 people visit, although it was not spread evenly so there was plenty of time twiddling our thumbs and wondering if anyone else was going to turn up. I only did one photography demonstration the whole day. However, in some ways this did allow us to get settled and modify our processes for greeting and interacting with visitors.

Friday was considerably more lively with more than twice the number of visitors, many of whom were very engaged and asking lots of questions. We had quite a few in within minutes of opening, which meant it was well after 12pm before we got our morning coffee, and after 3pm before we were able to grab a bite of a sandwich. I did 4 photography demonstrations and made 3 voucher sales on discounts for future photo shoots.

Saturday is always the busiest day of Spring Fling, so we were there early, hyped up and ready to receive the heaving throngs.

Half an hour in and no one had arrived.

I thought I would use the time to do a studio tour for those who couldn't make it along. I was thinking particularly of many of my podcast following regulars who are spread across the world – as far flung as the USA to South Africa to India.

By 11.45am I was convinced there must have been an accident somewhere that had closed the road. I got in the car and drove the ½ mile down the track to the main road, but cars were zooming back and forth as usual. 

Baffled, I returned to Maggie.

12.10pm we received our first visitors. By now we were adjusting our expectations.

We had fewer people than Friday, but those that did turn up were again very engaged. I did 3 photography demos and sold another 3 vouchers

Comment of the Day: "Oh, are you two related?"

Traditionally, Sundays can often be as busy as Saturdays, but this time it was quieter again. 3 demos, and I sold 1 voucher.

The vouchers were the same as I did 3 years ago – for only £10 you could by a £100 discount voucher off your next shoot. Although last time I sold 12, only half converted into actual photo shoots. This time, I suspect the same might happen. 3 of them I'm pretty sure will get used, 1 I'm less sure of, and 3 I would be quite surprised if I'm contacted again.

During a quiet patch I decided to record the photo demonstration with Meg as my able assistant.

In total, across the 4 days, we had 150 visitors – way down on expectations. It seems that in addition to post-Covid caution and rising fuel prices, there were also a mass of other events on where organisers were wanting to cash in on the extra days of the Jubilee holidays, so the competition was just a bit too fierce.

And yet not only were Maggie's sales on a par with other years, her experience was a much better one.

In previous Spring Flings, Maggie has been based in her studio in Kirkcudbright, in a building full of other artist's studios, which has made it something of a mega-hub. Typically she would get in the region of 900 people coming through her small studio. However, a number of them weren't necessarily that interested in her work, but were just having a quick look because the door was open.

What this meant was the space could quickly be too full for anyone to be able to move round much, and sometimes there were people who were genuinely interested who couldn't get in, or have the time to properly chat to Maggie.

In our space this time, though, the only people who turned up were those who had circled our studios in the Spring Fling Brochure and were making a point to come and visit either me or Maggie.

With the larger space and fewer numbers, it meant visitors could take their time, view the images from different distances, and ask questions in a less pressured environment.

Consequently, not only was the visitor experience better, but the host experience was too.

Additionally there was something very comforting about being able to just periodically glance over and see Maggie just a few feet away, and then be able to chat and have coffee together during quiet periods.

There's no doubt we could happily have dealt with more than twice the number without any drop off of the quality of the experience on either side, but we still felt it was better than if Maggie had been in her usual place.

One less welcome gift from the Spring Fling event, unfortunately, is after more than 2 years of being hyper-vigilant, we managed to contract Covid 19.

There is part of me that definitely wishes our society had adopted more of a mask-wearing culture just as an ongoing thing, rather than dropping it at the first opportunity.