Somewhat to my astonishment all of my troupe who were on L-S Dave's invigilation rota arrived on time to open to the public. Flushed with success from the Preview Party the evening before, and rather naively, I expected to be flattened in the ensuing rush of art patrons, all potential customers. It being the Children's Parade I reasoned that these were most likely to be retirees, young professionals and those without school-age children. I had created enough health and safety signs to cope will all eventualities - including positioning a vibrant cordon around Heavenly's exhibit that, I hoped, would prevent toddlers from using it as a climbing frame. It was with baited breath that I anticipated the coming storm.
At 11 am sharp our first visitor arrived, surveyed the display, and left - our first, and last, visitor for at least an hour. Etched in my memory is the vision of Kenneth, not a small man and with a shock of greying hair, perched on a stool in the middle of an empty room and enquiring with mock gloom, 'Is the doctor going to be long, because I've been here since eleven?'
Visitors that first afternoon also may have noticed Matt the crying potter. I know that talented artists are meant to be temperamental but this was not because he'd had a bad day. On the contrary, swelled with the joy of life and elated to be part of this delightful troupe, Matt had wandered blissfully into the garden and buried his face deep into the Choisya to fill his senses with it's scent. Matt has hay fever.
Visitors, I've discovered, hunt in packs - they may as well be tied together with string. At one point I suspected that L-S Dave - in one of his entrepreneurial moments - had nipped out along the A23 and re-directed coach trips down our road.
There are art-lovers, cake-lovers, house snoopers ('I like what they've done to the flooring but I'm not so keen on the banisters') and out for a walk'ers. Then there are the Arnies who accompany their exit with haunting cries of 'I'll be back'. In fact we had a veritable army of Arnies that first weekend and, if you were one of them, you can only imagine the heightened state of excitement you instilled in PMT.
Some visitors genuinely wish to purchase art, others are less prepared - 'How Much?!' (replete with bulging eyes and raised eyebrows) was one visitor's reaction to Kenneth's exhibition. In response - quite calmly, I thought, in the circumstances - he delivered a short lecture on the economics of producing fine art.
More positively Jacob, only 13 and keen to go shopping, made his first sale - a colour photo of his favourite sweets that he had spent some time over - in part because he kept eating the sweets.
At the end of the weekend we took stock - sales weren't bad but visitors were thin on the ground. A quick call around to other Open Houses and we estimated that ours had attracted about 30% of the available footfall for that weekend - not bad for a debut performance, we were told. Humph - I wasn't brought up to be complacent! Snapping back into Apprentice PM mode I gathered together the team to devise our strategic marketing plan for the coming week.
PMT told us (several times, and with a map of the Seven Dials trail in hand) that we were in the wrong location and that, on the edge of the trail, we could not expect to attract visitors. So, if you're up at Seven Dials and spot a bewildered artist sporting a framed canvas necklace you'll know that it all got too much!
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