How to communicate your gallery opening: the first three months

01Before the opening: preparing the ground

Communication begins well before the opening. The four to six weeks preceding the launch day are crucial for building anticipation and ensuring your inaugural opening does not take place before an empty room.

Your website must be live at least one month before the opening. It should present your project (in a few clear sentences, not a ten-page manifesto), your artists and the dates of your inaugural exhibition. The domain name, hosting and site design represent a modest investment: a WordPress or Squarespace site with a clean theme and quality images is sufficient to start. Sophistication will come later. Do not delay the opening because your website is not perfect: a simple and clear site online is better than a perfect site that does not yet exist.

Create your social media accounts, with Instagram as the priority since it is the dominant network in the contemporary art world. Begin posting content four to six weeks before the opening: renovation works, the first artworks arriving, artists in their studios, hanging choices in progress. This behind-the-scenes content creates a narrative that arouses curiosity and engagement. People who follow you from the renovation phase will be your first and most enthusiastic visitors.

Build a contact list. It should include collectors you know personally, specialist journalists in your city, other gallerists in the neighbourhood, directors of art centres and regional contemporary art collections (FRAC) in your area, independent curators and bloggers or critics covering the local scene. This list is your most valuable communication tool. Send a personal announcement email, not an impersonal mass mailing, to each contact. Present your project, announce the opening date and express your wish to welcome them. Personalising each email takes time but makes a considerable difference in response rate.

02The inaugural opening: the founding event

The opening night is the most important event of your first year. It sets the tone, establishes your positioning and creates the first wave of word of mouth that will carry your gallery through the following weeks. Prepare it with the care you would give to an event on which your project's future depends, because that is exactly the case.

The inaugural exhibition must be flawless. Choose your strongest artist, the one whose work best encapsulates your curatorial vision. A group show can work if it is very well conceived and tells a coherent story, but the solo exhibition has the advantage of clarity: it states in a single gesture what your gallery stands for.

The invitation should be sent three weeks before the opening. The classic format is a printed card (which demonstrates your seriousness and investment) accompanied by a reminder email one week before. The card should be sober, with a strong image of the exhibited work, practical information and nothing superfluous. Do not overload the invitation with text: a powerful image and essential information suffice. Galerie Lelong is known for the graphic quality of its invitation cards, which some enthusiasts collect and which contribute to the gallery's image well beyond the opening itself.

On the evening of the opening, everything must be perfect. The hanging is finished at least two days in advance (not the night before, because you will always discover a detail to correct), the lighting is adjusted, the wine is chilled, the wall texts are in place. Be available, welcoming and take time to speak with each visitor. Note the names and contacts of people you do not yet know. Ask a trusted friend to photograph the evening for your social media, as you will be too busy to do it yourself.

Do not be discouraged if the crowd does not materialise. A first opening with thirty or forty motivated people is an excellent result for a new gallery. The quality of visitors matters infinitely more than their number. Three serious collectors who stay for an hour and ask questions about the works are worth more than two hundred curious passers-by who stop for five minutes, drink a glass and leave without looking at the walls.

03The first weeks: establishing the rhythm

After the excitement of the opening, the first weeks may seem quiet. This is normal and there is no reason to panic. Footfall at a young gallery builds slowly, visit by visit, recommendation by recommendation. Your task during this period is to establish a regular communication rhythm that keeps your gallery in the landscape and in the minds of those who discovered you at the opening.

On Instagram, post two to three times per week. Alternate between exhibition views, detail shots of works, artist portraits and short texts that illuminate the works. Avoid overly commercial posts ("Work available, contact us") that repel sophisticated collectors and give a desperate impression. Instead, show the work, tell its story, share the artist's words, make people want to come and see in person what the screen only imperfectly conveys.

Send a monthly newsletter to your contact list. One email per month, no more, presenting the current exhibition, announcing the next one and sharing one or two items of news about your artists (a publication, a residency, an exhibition at another institution). The newsletter should be concise: an introductory text of five or six lines, two or three quality images, practical information. Galerie Nathalie Obadia sends newsletters of remarkable efficiency: short, visual, informative, they make you want to click and visit.

04The relationship with the press

Specialist press remains an important lever for a young gallery's credibility. An article in an art magazine or a mention in the local press provides a legitimacy that social media alone do not. When a journalist writes about your gallery, they endorse you in the eyes of their readers.

Press outreach begins with a press release for each exhibition. This document should contain a text about the artist and the exhibition (one page maximum, clear and without excessive jargon), a biography of the artist, high-definition images free of rights for the press, and practical information. Send it three weeks before the opening to the journalists on your list. Accompany the mailing with a short personal message explaining why this exhibition might interest that particular journalist.

Do not limit yourself to the national press, which is often difficult to access for a new gallery. Local and regional press is often more accessible and more receptive to new galleries setting up in their territory. An article in the local daily or weekly reaches a nearby readership that constitutes your first pool of visitors and potential collectors. Blogs and websites specialising in contemporary art are also valuable relays. In France, sites such as Slash, Paris-Art and Le Journal des Arts regularly cover gallery openings and are open to proposals from young structures.

If a journalist agrees to visit, welcome them personally, present the exhibition and the artist with passion but without overwhelming them, and make available all the material they need (high-definition images, texts, artist contacts). Make their job as easy as possible. A journalist who is well treated and well documented will return, and a journalist who returns is a lasting ally.

05The professional network: first connections

The first three months are the time to forge initial links with your professional ecosystem. Introduce yourself to other gallerists in your city or neighbourhood. Competition between galleries exists, but professional solidarity is surprisingly strong in the art world. Established gallerists can direct you to collectors, recommend you for fairs, share trusted suppliers (transporters, framers, printers) or simply offer practical advice drawn from their own start-up experience.

Attend events in the scene: openings at other galleries, talks at art centres, meetings of the local gallery association if one exists, professional dinners. Each outing is an opportunity to meet collectors, curators and professionals who enrich your network. Do not hesitate to invite people you meet to come and see your next exhibition.

Contact the art centres and regional contemporary art collections in your area to introduce yourself and make them aware of your programme. These institutions are important prescribers: their teams know local collectors and can direct visitors interested in the artists you champion towards your gallery. A letter of introduction accompanied by a dossier on your first exhibition is sufficient to initiate contact.

06Following up with visitors: turning visits into relationships

Every visitor who enters your gallery is a potential contact to cultivate. Start a conversation, ask whether they would like to receive your invitations, note their name and email in a notebook or on your phone. This collecting work is tedious but essential for your growth. After three months, your contact list should have doubled or tripled compared with what you had at opening.

Follow-up after the visit is what distinguishes effective gallerists from the rest. A personal email sent the next day to a visitor who showed interest in a work, with one or two additional images and some information about the artist, transforms passing interest into a lasting relationship. This simple gesture is the foundation of the gallery profession and costs nothing but time and attention.

For collectors who purchased during the inaugural exhibition or the first weeks, a personal thank-you (not an automated email) and a gesture at the next exhibition (an invitation to the opening dinner, priority access to new works, a call to propose a piece before it is shown publicly) establish loyalty from the start. These first buyers are the foundations of your clientele: treat them with the care they deserve.

07Mistakes to avoid during the first three months

The first mistake is changing course too quickly. Your inaugural exhibition defines a curatorial direction. If you move from an exhibition of abstract painting to one of documentary photography then to one of ceramics in three months, you blur your image and lose the collectors who were beginning to identify with you. The consistency of your direction is what builds your credibility over time.

The second mistake is slashing prices for quick sales. First sales are important for cash flow and morale, but they also establish the price levels the market retains. An artist whose works you sell too cheaply at the start will struggle to see prices rise later, and first-wave collectors will feel aggrieved when prices increase.

The third mistake is neglecting documentation. Photograph every exhibition from every angle with a quality camera or phone, keep press releases, archive articles and press coverage. This documentation constitutes your gallery's memory and will be indispensable for fair applications, funding dossiers and future communication. A gallery without photographic archives of its past exhibitions is a gallery without a history.

08Artedusa from day one

Registering your gallery on Artedusa from opening day gives you immediate access to a community of active collectors. Each work you publish on the platform is a sales opportunity that depends neither on your foot traffic nor on your track record. While you build your local reputation week by week, Artedusa extends your reach internationally and allows you to make your first online sales, which will complement those made in the gallery and strengthen your cash flow during the crucial months of launch.