Anton Chekhov’s famed quote, “I should think I’m going to be a perpetual student” (The Cherry Orchard), captures a sentiment that many of us share – a love of learning. This is perhaps why creative workshops continue to boom in popularity.

After posing the question – Should I offer workshops to help the cash flow? – in an earlier article, ArtsHub learned that that there are pros and cons to running workshops. Getting that work/outcome equation right is key, and understanding your costs first is essential to setting the price.

Continuing our suite of three articles, today we dive in to how to run a workshop, and call on the advice of artists and creatives who have got the balance right. We also asked a workshop participant to offer a critical lens – and their advice is an invaluable learning.

Quick pointers from my own experience

Over the years, I have run six-week professional development classes for arts professionals, intensive weekend writing workshops for artists and online-booked, one-hour studio tumbler-making experiences in my glass studio in regional NSW. All have a market.

What is consistent across all these options, are the following learnings:

• Teach actual techniques – while encouragement and socialising are nice, your workshop will be more successful if you arm your students with a new skill. Consider what that easily transferable skill may be – test it on a friend first – then shape the experience around those learnings. You want your students to go home feeling empowered to be creative.
• Testing your workshop with a sample group will also help you firm up your material needs and timing, and build your confidence.
  Always design your workshop experience so that people go home with a completed piece. It is also built-in marketing for you, as they joyfully show it off to others.
• Determine your workshop lesson plan – consider step-by-step what will you run them through, and over what time frame. Test it. Allow time for demonstrations and questions.
• Don’t make it overly ambitious for a beginner. The hardest part of creating workshops is getting the balance right for the group.
• Create a handout for them to take home with all the necessary details, suppliers and tips. They will be taking in a lot of information on the day, so a handout means they can follow along with you, add notes to, or just relax into the day knowing you have got them covered for later on.
• Even if you have a big studio, keep your class small because you can’t give everyone the one-on-one attention they are paying for if you are too stretched.
• As artists we are used to pushing hard in the studio, but your participants won’t be – this is largely a leisure choice to attend.
• You need to allow for breaks – to digest, to eat, to discuss – before getting back into it refreshed. Some people may stick with it, but let that be their choice. You need to keep this fun (not work), and allow time for laughter and sharing.

Smart move

Jeweller Corinne Snare says that workshops have become the largest part of her income stream for her studio business, A Silver Circle Design, sitting “at about 50% of my income,” she says,.

A fantastic teacher (I know first-hand), Snare said she started off doing one workshop a month, in and around markets. “I am now at four to five days a month and they are a much more reliable income, and I don’t have to leave the studio,” she tells ArtsHub.

Snare says the key tip to any creative considering workshops is: “Start where your strengths lie, or where you are most passionate, as you will find that the easiest to teach, then you can build from there.”

She continues, “For me it is more about lifestyle. When I moved to the Southern Highlands [in regional NSW], I thought the workshops would fade out as I lived out of Sydney. But I found that they increased as more people wanted an excuse to get out of city and do something new.”

In terms of managing and balancing her workshop offerings with her own studio practice, Snare says she has found that a three-to five-hour one-off workshop works best. She has also picked up return visits, and a number of private students, which is a great option as you build your reputation.

A good tip that Snare offers is to bundle your workshop days. “I don’t do nights, as I find it too hard to get out of work mode to wind down for bed. I schedule two workshops per day to make the best use of my time as all the prep is done for both.”

She adds: “For a full workshop day I am working about eight hours from home, as opposed to a market where I can be away from home for 12-ish hours and not necessarily make more money.”  

She says that the biggest challenge is shifting material costs, and then having to readjust your price and marketing, especially your evergreen ads.

Advice from veteran attendee

Self-confessed workshop junkie, Gloria Rozario, does two to three workshops every month. “I’m an absolute workshop queen, and if I need something at home – lampshade, art, ceramics, blankie etc – I tend to go make it at a workshop myself,” she tells ArtsHub.

Rozaria says that one of the big attractions for her, on top of doing something creative, is the interaction. “I enjoy the social aspect and, as my work is so consuming, I like losing myself in the process, and most importantly finishing the piece/pieces at the workshop.”

She continues, “One of my pet hates is a workshop where you take it home to complete over days/weeks/months. It does not get completed. A common complaint (among participants) at workshops is the number of unfinished projects one has at home.”

Rozario’s preference is for a whole day workshop rather than a one- to three-hour gathering, explaining that by the time you get through the introduction and the feel for the materials, “a couple of hours is not enough to learn, and grasp, a new skill”.

“Ideally, when it’s a whole day, even a whole weekend, everyone gets a level of individual attention and you leave with the satisfaction of having completed something.”

She puts the optimum number at 12 participants, but adds that smaller groups, such as six to eight, encourage a bond, and can lead to, “rebooking in for more workshops together”.

She says that another consideration for makers and creatives is to keep variety in their offering. “I have done a lot of jewellery workshops and started with a bangle and cuff, then attended a ring one, then earrings, then rings with stones… I will return to make more pieces of jewellery, not repeated bangles.”

Rozario offers ArtsHub readers a fabulous ‘please do’ list, to help you plan your workshop:

• Please supply all materials.
• Please provide, and state, the option of buying materials at your space, as I may not have the type of cutter for a bonsai, but if I enjoy the class I will buy one to take home and continue my new hobby.
• Also, have different price points for materials, as I may not want to buy a $50 bonsai trimmer to begin with, but if there is a $20 option to start me off, I will. 
• Please provide food. If people have to leave to buy food, they will delay the class.
• Please have comfortable seats with back rests if the workshop is mostly seated. 
• Please have adequate heating and/or cooling, and a loo that is not in another building or up and down flights of stairs. 
• Please do not introduce yourself and your achievements for more than 10 minutes. Give us your social handles in the email when we sign up and we will read up about you before the workshop if we are interested. I seriously attended a workshop where we watched a 20-minute slideshow of the instructor’s work before the workshop! 
• Please diplomatically control the interruptors and chatty loud friends, so the entire group is not disrupted. 

She adds that one of the biggest mistakes is waiting for latecomers. The time is very clear, and many people travel to be there, so think of the group not just the individual.

Rozario says that another flaw she has come up against is instructors, “underestimating the skills of the attendees” and “not handing out a little takeaway kit relating to the workshop”.

“We love a little something to remind us of the lovely time we had.”

She concludes by suggesting instructors send a “follow-up email with links to like-minded creators, crafts etc, and ask us what we are working on”.

Know your offering - don’t wing it

Dr Sian Prior – creative writing teacher, and author of Shy: a Memoir and Childless: a Story of Freedom and Longing – tells ArtsHub that workshops make up about a third of her income. “[I’ve] run writing workshops – in person and online – for over a decade and they’ve become an increasingly important part of my income stream as a freelance writer and teacher.”

Her key advice is: “Do not try to ‘wing it.”

Prior continues, “Make sure you have a very clear course structure (and individual class plans) preprepared and clearly described on your website before you begin to offer your course. If it’s a writing course, it should include craft content, readings, writing exercises and homework tasks.”

Prior agrees that there is a lot of competition for workshops, so “potential students are understandably looking for something professional, well-organised and worth the cost”.

“Word quickly gets around if your course isn’t well-organised and useful.”

She also offers the following tips:

• Make sure your communication with your students is timely, clear and respectful.
• Make sure you’ve thought about accessibility for all potential students.
• Consider having a Code of Conduct for your courses, so everyone who participates knows what’s expected of them in classes.

When it comes to money, Prior says that you can’t underestimate the work that goes into them. “There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be taken into account when you’re setting your fee structure – preparation time, communication time between classes, feedback you may offer your students outside of class hours, the cost of subscribing to Zoom (or similar products) if you’re teaching online… Lots of administrivia! But once you have your systems in place, it becomes more efficient.”

Prior has found that running six-week online short courses twice a year, for each course offering, the best option for her. “These are usually on a weeknight (for example, two hours every Thursday night for six weeks). This suits most of my students who are mostly working during the daytimes,” she says,

“I love doing this work,” Prior concludes. “It usually feels like a privilege to spend a few hours each week with these smart creative people.”

This article was originally published by our friends at ArtsHub Australia.

Written by Gina Fairley