Why do you spend so much time and money on your Art events

… a friend asked me the other day.

And you don’t even want the press to write about it?

The occasion was our resent exhibition & event Prasad@Tings – that ended yesterday. The 8th art show in two years and the most successfull one. Not only did we break all records in terms of guests at the opening. I stopped counting when I reached 450 – that was at 7:15 pm where some guests had left and new guests still arriving. But the opening was a commercial succes as well. One guest told me that the opening was the best selling he have ever been to i Kathmandu. He had counted all the red dots and compared the sold pieces with the prices in the catalogue… add to that all the works we sold after the opening. That means a lot to us. We actually don’t get provision from the sales – the sale goes directly to the artist. But if the artists didn’t sell people might a wrong idea about our involvement – that we just use them for promoting Tings without any consideration about ther income – or to put it another way: that they attend in our circus without getting payed! And that is not the case. We care a lot – about the commercial side and (more important) – about their carrier as artists: their artistic integrity. And that brings me back to my friends question. Why Art?
Our art involvement is Not a coincidence. First its because Art-as-Branding is something we know about: Here we have something to share! Second. We do not spend money on traditional marketing – we use Art & Culture as a longterm marketing tool in positioning the Tings Brand. A well defined strategy that combines our experience with our passion for all aspects of art and culture. The way we do it is by getting involved in projects we like ourselves – we need to get emotionally envolved. This ensures the projects relevance to our Tings Brand Platform. We do get involved financially. But the most important investment is the time we spend in coaching the involved artists, showing them how to conceptualize the art, define the audience, the media and the potential relevant sponsors. In other words: make the strategy! And in Kathmandu where this way of thinking is very Alien: We also have t execute it the plan! Third: The main idea about Tings is to create and run a business that makes a difference for all the young boys and girls involved – which off course also include the people we work with in promoting the idea. So instead of ‘just’ giving money to a project we get a chance to share all our knowledge, experience and network. And by showing-by-doing all involved get a chance to see how things are done (methods) and how things progress. Something they normally never get access to. So Art@Tings combines our vision of making a difference with our Branding of Tings and our marketing and communication background.