The CHF Art-Business Conference is growing. Unlike a lot of conferences, this is not an annual, one and done event. Each year’s event has a theme we carry to individual cities and regions throughout the US. Like the contagious Johnny Cash cover of “I’ve Been Everywhere (Man),” we’ve been to DC, Denver, Dallas, Florida, Santa Fe…and the song goes on: six conferences under our belt, and two more lined up in the near future.
So what the heck happens at these things? Trade booths with comic book signings? Celebrity dunk tanks? Mechanical bulls? Midnight rock concerts? Mobile device rollouts? Well… perhaps one of these days. With deference to Comicon New York and the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas, the central features of the Art-Business Conference are:
- Accelerator Training for Professional Artists
- The Thriving Art Exchange
- Continued Collaboration
Accelerator Training: Based on CHF’s year-long Business Accelerator Fellowship, we pack a substantive selection of intensive business training, designed to accelerate a professional artist’s career goals, into a couple of days. The outcomes are a clearer, more defined Career Blueprint, Action Plan, Brand Story, Sales Strategy, and Peer Network—each a pivotal tool in the working artist’s arsenal.
Thriving Art Exchange: CHF brings representatives of each role in the art industry together with working artists, to collaborate on creating a thriving arts economy for all. In those structured sessions, participants form working groups voice competing and complementary goals and debate each others’ ideas and recommendations—then arrive at common ground and a mutual roadmap with next steps each have agreed to undertake.
Continued Collaboration: All attendees gain access to the Thriving Art Exchange digital edition—an active community of artists and art industry professionals. Artists who go through training gain access to CHF’s digital campus, with hundreds of learning materials that would cost a mint anywhere else (except they don’t exist anywhere else). Followup virtual events and local community activities by Exchange participants extend the momentum and further develop a thriving collaboration.
The Conference Hub: You or someone you know (perhaps both) should be aware of where and when these conferences are happening. Perhaps you want to gather sponsors and bring the Art-Business Conference to your area. You can do it! Come to us, or bring us to you. The starting place is the Art-Business Conference Hub at clarkhulingsfoundation.org/conference. We’re adding new locations and dates all the time, so keep a watchful eye.
