Fund raising and degree show

 This page will be where i document all my work research and notes on doing fundraising for the degree show and working with the class. 

For this part of the course we are tasked with fundraising for our end of year degree show but this time unlike others year semesters where the work and pieces we produce are funded for by the teachers and university we will be working together as a class with assistance from our tutors Conan and Gareth who will somewhat nudge us in the right direction. This page will document everything I have done as well will include interactions of other students I have worked with even outside people. I will discuss how certain things went what could go better what we could of changed.  Just a quick note for some context i am the class rep and i look over concerns of students so some of them maybe discussed in coming text.  

Valentines day 

The first project we was recommended to do is to open up a valentines tall and make cards and little cute bits and bobs for people to buy to give to there love ones on valentines day we all came together to pool recourses in terms of card glue all the art utensils to make these. There was a few concerns on that some students within the class about how we pay quite a lot of money for the course and being asked to pay a little bit more did not sit with some people. But after some back and fourth between the tutors and the class we settled that it wouldn't be too much if we pooled what stuff we had and then a small group including myself of students went to the range the morning before class to get some extras supplies even if they where not used for this they where there for future projects as well anyone in the comics arts studio to use. Once we we where briefed everyone was asked to make at least one card then if they wanted to make more they could as well as make some of there own things for the stall. such as someone added there valentines themed prints and someone sold scented frogs. For the stall we used the pop up comic shop that is located on the other side of the university campus we was supposed to use this a couple of times throughout our second year but due to the covid 19 pandemic all of our classes where online only so this was our first time been given the opportunity to do this.  

This is the the card is created for the stall it was a little play on a character from genshin impact. I did create a second which was instantly bought by a classmate once the stall was open. as well as the initial stall open the tutors had acquired a couple extra stalls where other classmates sold there different unique different valentines gifts as well as making some quick promo posters for around the area of the campus. One of our classmates made some nice promotional posters for the stall in which I went to the nearby student bar known as a ember to ask the manager if I could put up some flyers within the venue to spread awareness of the valentines stall.

As well as the stalls been set up we had big pieces of paper on the wall an different pens and pencils allowing passers by as well as classmates to draw what they like and add to the board sadly no one really drew so as a class we all had some fun drawing and sketching different things on the paper and it was interesting to see everyone different styles and creations a bit of fun for the class and one of the times we had fun as a whole class. 

Throughout the first day we sold a little bit but with only been able to take cash it really limited our sales as not many people carry change at all now a days something we needed to consider for the next-time being able to take card or even paypal would help to raise more money. It was decided on the end of Thursday night as we where packing up it would benefit us more if we opened the stall for two extra days so the Friday and Saturday to try and gain extra sales. 

The Friday we made a bit of business but with the week coming to the end the foot traffic in that area of the university was very quiet but it was still worth the effort of opening up Me and a classmate Jacob where on the stall majority of the day from 1 till 5 we made a but yet again with this been our first venture as a class we did well and learnt from the mistakes and learnt what we could do better.

  

Jacob helping on the Saturday stall.  

The stall been open on a Saturday was up for debate but a few people decided to want to open it as well as a few second years where selling some of there own stuff on it plus we thought we may get some sales due to it being an open day and there are lots of parents waiting for there kids to have there interviews with the courses they want to join. not much was sold if anything as interviews came to a close we closed the stall there was no point since there was no one else on campus at this point as previously mentioned it was a weekend. 

The frog zine 

 Once we had done the valentines stall we was happy with the amount we made I cannot genuinely remember but it was around 30ish pound from selling our stuff for under 3 pound per item. The teachers had an interesting idea that we all decided what our next idea for fundraising will be as group we all came up with lots of different variety's of ideas for this next endeavour. But it came down to fan art and frogs with jobs so it came to a combo for that we could do something that involved both of the ideas and that it would go into a zine that would be sold digitally online as well as sold physically on a stall again like what we did with the valentine's stall.

At this moment i personally felt like that expanding the stall would be the key to success and making more money. so I contacted the ember lounge manager who I do personally know so that helped as well as he is my boss snice I work there. I contacted him asking to set up a stall in the entrance to ember lounge to sell the frog zine we would still sell the zine using the pop up comic shop but divide and conquer seemed like a good idea to at least try there was no harm. 

This was the frog piece i did for the zine it is my Original character Odin created from a different comic i did in my second year dressed in frog onesie surrounded by lots of little friends. I enjoy any excuse to draw her. 

So the big day came and we carted our stuff over to ember and got our selves set up in the entrance not fully blocking the way but just in enough you have to take notice as well as we had signs outside of the lounge to draw people in.     

An initial 20 where made for this day we sold out both from the pop up comic stall and the ember stall which was an absolutely massive success and was a genuinely really good feeling for the class as well as everyone who bought one it really meant a lot. We used a mixture of paypal and cash as well as a few bank transfers to take money we made around 86 pound . . 

Work in Ember

I did not expect this to happen but I was contacted by my manager at ember who was looking to make the place a little bit brighter and hopefully getting some artwork up in the more boring parts of the venue luckily enough we just had got a lot of our work produced on big a2 pieces that were put up at the end of semester 2 so this was stroke of luck. I invited him to come in and speak to my tutor Adrian about the possibility of getting it up it all seemed to go well the manager was happy with the work. 

There was quite a few back and fourths between my tutor and the ember managers due to them getting the greenlight from upstairs on having work up in ember lounge but thankfully it was all greenlit and we could get our work up. on one of Thursday classes we did exactly that one of the managers came over had a look at all the artwork and to see if everything was appropriate. we then travelled over and had free reign on where we picked to put up our artwork me and my group of friends decided to stick together since our style is quite similar throughout. 

It was very very good to see all our work up added some much needed colour to ember lounge. After working there for the past 4 years I believe I can say that. While we was setting up all this and relaxing I spoke with my tutors about what we could next in terms of another stall to help fundraise more money for our degree show we had already decided at a previous gathering that the frog zine sells and there is no need to change that in anyway frogs do sell no matter how many people may not think so. We discussed maybe having smaller versions of the zines printed and maybe having small individual prints that we could sign and having little deals where you buy a zine get a signed print of your choice. More of this will be discussed next section. 

Frog stall 2 and meet the artist

When putting up the work the tutors introduced an interesting idea of combining the fact we put up our work and the fact we are doing another sale of the frog zine but with more copies little extras as well as our classmate nick selling some of his really cool custom creature models. so they came up with some cool little ads that where placed around the university as well as mainly ember lounge. 

There where different variations but this was my favourite but these where on nearly every table and on the bar of ember. So for this stall we had I believe we had 15-20 big zines about 20 small zines and about 10 of each small print that is within the frog zine these are the ones we would be signing and putting with the zines. We also had some of our classmates selling there comics they made last semester. 

 

Something that was an absolute god send was Sam Hendry one of our classmates lent her card reading machine to me I set it up really easy and it made the whole day and doing transactions and dealing with people who only have card an absolute cakewalk. I do believe that the card reader was a massive influence on how much we made that day. On card alone we made 137 pound which is the most we made plus in cash was an additional 30 pound of course the cash number i cannot remember but because I was using the card machine I know the exact we made on card. Overall our best day doing a stall as a class everyone had fun smiles all around and it shows the absolute power of what can happen when we can all work together it is a shame we did not get this opportunity last year in person teamwork due to the pandemic but doing these stalls have really helped us and I have learned a lot of experience and how much pieces of equipment such as the card reader are crucial to capitalising on as many potential customers. We sold out of nearly every print all the small zines there was only a couple of larger zines left which i believe where sold off later on after the stall. 

Of course none of this could of happened without the amazing managers at ember for allowing us to cause chaos upon the customers on a Thursday as well as allowing us to have our work up to brighten up the place as well as get our work out there seen. 

I genuinely feel like i have learnt an absolute lot from these stalls as well as the importance of asking and been prepared to push ideas as well as solutions to problems on the spot. both frog zine stalls i was constantly on the stall working making sure that we kept on pushing and selling always willing to keep going just for that extra sale and really take advantage of the rare opportunity been able to sell to the people of ember lounge and the whole university. I think if i was to calculate all the money we raised from solid number to my bad memory i believe we made around 250-300ish pound from all our stalls combined to go towards different parts of the degree show and expenses from that. 

 Sale of art 

Interesting thing was due to my job at ember I was liaison if anyone was interested in the work or the different artists. I assisted in the sale of a classmates work. I was approached by a friend  who was interested in Frances piece that she had mounted up in the ember lounge and how much would she be willing to sell for. 

I informed Frances and she was interested in the sale of it she spoke back and fourth with our tutor on pricing and what to do and then one day when I was in shift the buyer was in and I decided to contact frances and see if she wanted me to do the sale as well as send her the money  it all went down very nicely both parties happy. first time I did an art sale for someone. 

The degree show 

For my degree show i wanted it to be simple nothing too much just a cut out of one of my characters and two pages on a2 boards on the wall with my name tag nothing to over the top main thing was the character life size cut-out. I spoke with the tutors about what I would want and that I was not too fussed funding my prints and cut-out out of my own pocket since i would want to take cut-out with me once the degree show was over. 

The cut-out was not too hard to get ordered since there was always a cut-out that a previous graduate student had ordered with some research one the back it says that i was supplied by a company called celebrity cut outs and that with further research there is a custom section where you send in a clean png of the character or person you want specify what you want. I sent in this jpeg of my character silvy from my comic swamp of steel.  

I was quite happy I sent off the request and pay and she was dispatched the next day with no hassle or any issues. It was delivered all well and I set it up in the degree show. The only thing I need to still need to set for the degree show is my prints but there have been a few issues with them so hopefully I can get it sorted before the big night.