Artist registration

Chichester Open Studios – Art Trail

1. 2025 Open Studios dates

Saturday 17th, Sunday 18th, Saturday 24th, Sunday 25th and Bank Holiday Monday 26th May

Studios are open from 10.30am – 5.00pm

Complete the registration form

All Studios/Venues must be open and artist to be present for the entirety of the opening hours. There is an option to be open or closed on the Bank Holiday Monday 26th May.

2. Registration

Once you are registered, you will receive regular email Newsletters with support and essential information about the COS timeline, what needs to be done, what is happening and when.

3. Who can take part?

Artists must be over 18 years old.

Chichester Open Studios is open to all artists and makers resident in the Chichester area who have their full or part-time art studio in the area. The Chichester area for this purpose is defined by the borders of the 2024 event. To see these, please download the 2024 Guide or use the map via this link to our venues.

4. What to exhibit and demonstrate?

Only your own original work or Editioned Fine Art prints of your work may be exhibited in a thoughtful and professional manner.

It is essential that each artist provides demonstrative evidence such as live demonstrations, showing a video of you at work, displaying a series of photos of your working process, explaining work in progress plus sketchbooks or visual inspiration.

NB you don’t have to do all of these but at least one is advised and the more exciting your Studio the more engaged your visitors will be.

5. I don’t have a studio/sharing spaces

If you are unable to open your place of work, you may still take part by joining other artist in their studio. Remember only six artists per venue unless multiple artists work in a studio group environment and all register as individuals. Studio complexes may not have additional artists as guests. This preserves the working studio atmosphere and ethos of Chichester Open Studios and also supports the artists who open their studios alone. An artist wishing to share, or offer a place for up to five other artists in their studio, can contact us with their details and we will attempt to match you up.

Whilst we are an ‘Open Studio’ , we are very careful in all publicity, to refer to an artist’s ‘workspace’, ‘working environment’, ‘creative space’ or ‘Venue’. This is to infer that visitors may find an artist creating in all kinds of environment. It is often inspirational to a visitor to see that it is possible to create in a small area of a home and that an ‘all singing, all dancing’ studio is not always necessary!

6. Galleries

Galleries or art spaces promoting the work of other artists at the same time as our event, cannot participate.

7. Collection Day and other social events

It is essential you are available to collect all the materials needed for your studio including signage, posters, guides etc.

Date and time will be confirmed nearer the event. If you cannot make it, please ensure another artist, family or friend collects for you. Please car share where possible.

8. Oxmarket ‘Snap-shot’ Exhibition

There will be exhibition in April 2025 for everyone participating in COS25. The ‘Snap-shot’ Exhibition is an event where every registered artist may submit one representational piece of their artwork for sale with a private viewing. If you wish to be included in the spring Oxmarket ‘Snap-shot’ exhibition there is an option when registering.

We will provide more information after registration.

9. Marketing

Whilst Chichester Open Studios does all that it can within its means to place physical adverts in newspapers and magazines as well as utilising any online platform, as a participating artist you will be required to play your part in promoting the event. This could be in the form of newsletters to your followers, sharing on social media and helping to distribute the Open Studio guides and posters where relevant. More information on how you can play your part will be released near the time.

10. Cost

EACH ARTIST IS REQUIRED TO REGISTER AND PAY AS AN INDIVIDUAL WITHIN 1st NOVEMBER to 30th November 2024

The fee is £120 per artist wishing to join the 2025 Open Studios.

• Each artist has an entry in the Art Trail Guide; over 20,000 of these are made available to artists for distribution.
• The information from the artist’s registration form is uploaded to the website. Each artist has a webpage with 3 images of work, one working in studio image, an artist’s statement, description of work, location and directions to their studio.
• Please note that images submitted for the COS guide will be used on social media to promote the event. 
• All Venues are supplied with event signs to direct your visitors. These will be distributed on collection day along with your promotional materials.
• There are social media sites, a blog, website features and regular Newsletters. Artists are encouraged to “share, tag and repost” within the online marketing.

Newsletters

It is essential that registered artists read and act upon the regular newsletters. All information will be conveyed to artists by this means.

As in previous years, registration fees are non-refundable. We cannot refund for any reason – the payment covers the administrative cost of processing your registration and contributes towards costs of organising the event. There is always a lot to be done to ensure Open Studios is run professionally to showcases artists in the annual event.

Please note: An additional fee may be charged to process subsequent alterations to registration details after the deadline.