How to be successful: Dream, create & make money in the arts Pt 2

Pick a festival, any festival. Pick a great high profile Festival that scares you, thrills you, that you always wanted to be involved in.

Yep you heard me.

If you are an actor, playwright, singer, musician, dancer find a festival you want to do. Think about Edinburgh, Brighton, Camden Fringe, Melbourne, Montreal or New York.

If you are a painter or sculptor find a great festival or exhibition to submit work, The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Art Frieze, the Affordable Art Fair in New York.

If you are a film director with or without a script then what Festival do you want to submit your work for? There are a whole host from Sundance, Raindance, London, Edinburgh to Madrid, full length features, documentary to shorts.

If you are a band; think Isle of Wight, Glastonbury, Reading…

If you are a Photographer; the National Geographic Photo Contest, International Photography Awards,

If you are a writer; the BBC writing Room competitions, the Royal Court.

If you are a songwriter; the International Songwriting Competition

The UK Songwriting Competition

Pick just one right now
You can expand your reach and submit to others after getting your project ready for the the one you have picked.
Go and find the deadlines for submission
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is in August every year but the deadline for the magazine is always about Easter, and you have to be in the magazine for full marketing to work. So you know  that as its May 2013 at time of writing that you are aiming to get your project together by Easter 2014, not so scary after all.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition runs for 3 months from the end of May and their submission date is end March time. Affordable Art Fair in NYC is in October

Work out the deadline and give yourself a reasonable chance to get a submission ready without killing yourself. This is from a woman who wrote an Edinburgh show on the way up on the motorway. My mistakes are to be learnt from 😉

Stop worrying you haven’t got the work finished or even started yet.

Dont worry that you don’t have the budget, the inspiration, neither the actual creation nor the time to create, no flyers, blog or Twitter followers. This is the Marysia way of building a show.  Focus first on the goal ahead.

Dream big today and pick one that scares you in its possibility, what you will have to produce to do well there, the focus you will need. Depending on where you are in your creativity and technique some of these may be too big, but that’s tomorrows post 😉

See you tomorrow.