WHY are Open Calls for Entries Deadlines extended - and what does it mean?

Are you ambivalent about the phrase 

"Submissions for our Open Call are now EXTENDED until ...."

Back in April, Kris Mercer Art said something on her FB Page which I very much identify with - but didn't see at the time. 

Ok. It's gotta be said. My pet hate is this line: Submissions for our Open Call are now extended until ....
Does that mean the submissions so far have been rubbish and you need more or what!
I have made sure that I have got everything together, submit, then only to find that they extend the deadline.
I'm sorry but what is so difficult about picking a date and sticking to it?
If there are artists who haven't yet submitted but wanted to, basically, tough. Get your act together and submit on time and please, please, please organisers stick to the deadline.
Thoughts please Making A Mark

However I saw it some several weeks later and responded AND made a note to make it the topic of a blog post - which I'm addressing today 

I responded to her comment as follows

It means the submissions they have received so far have underwhelmed.

Or they've not been very good at marketing this year.

Or somebody messed up the website and/or social media.

or somebody made the requirements just too onerous for anybody to bother

Or all the above. Take your pick! 

An Open Call Extension suggests.....

... a number of things

This is something of an expansion on my shorthand response above.

Poor organisation

We don't change the dates of examinations or elections - so, if an open art exhibition or an art competition has been well organised and you want to be considered well organised and reputable, why on earth would you change the deadline for entries? 

To my mind it's a very clear signal that whoever is in charge really does NOT know 

• the standards of organisation, paperwork etc required
• how to budget for an open art exhibition / art competition
• how to generate the response that has been "assumed" at the planning stage.

TIP for organisers: Organisers need to bear in mind that gossip travels fast when open calls are badly organised. Artists have never been ones to sit on a story of how they were badly treated.....

Poor response

....to the Open Call for an art exhibition / competition in terms of:

• the NUMBER of actual responses - very disappointing
• the QUALITY of responses - insufficient good quality entries

This is, in my opinion, probably the MOST LIKELY REASON for the deadline to be changed and extended.

You can make an assessment that you have too few entries just by counting entries.

However THE REALLY IMPORTANT FACTOR is how good each entry is. 

I think a low level response is 

• an absolute trigger to take a careful look at the quality of response 
• and if that's poor too, then it's very likely that a deadline extension will be announced PDQ!!

TIP for organisers: If you want lots of good entries, show them what were rated as good entries in the previous year - by people who, in the end, did NOT get selected. i.e. this is the standard you need to aspire too and then do better than.

I've always suspected that the Artist of the Year Competitions each year have, in the past, sometimes been extended when the initial tranche of entries has been reviewed only to find that the response has been lightweight in terms of quality artists and artwork. This has the potential to roll on through the competition and produce disappointing heats and heat winners - and I think we've all seen this happen in the past. They seem to be getting better over time.....

Poor budgeting / financial strategy

Remember too, that if the fees from open entries are sometimes a critical part of the budget which is financing the endeavour on the ground. 

That's when there is a considerable incentive to extend the deadline and try and get more fee income into the coffers! However things can easily go awry when

• Organisers neglected to consider whether:
• the fee to enter relates well to the status of the open exhibition/competition (i.e. big important organisations running well known reputable open calls (exhibitions / competitions) can afford to charge more
• the expense of submitting the artwork is too significant - if it is to be rejected. This used to be much more influential in the past when the only way to get selected was to submit physically the actual you want to be assessed for a place in the exhibition / competition.
• the minimum price of artwork to be submitted is too high. With art exhibitions, many artists like to try and sell their work to cover their costs. If an organiser eliminates the lower priced artwork which is more likely to sell and cover costs, then there will be a significant drop off in entries - or overpriced artwork at the bottom end of the price range - which is unlikely to sell and generate commission!

In my opinion, as a one time professionally qualified accountant, failure to achieve budget targets is very often down to less than adequate research as to the numbers which matter. I'm afraid "wishful thinking" and "sheer guesses" are no substitute for doing some proper research.

TIP for artists: Those artists suspicious of such strategies would do well to only engage with those where the artist gas a serious chance of getting selected

TIP for organisers: Always make sure all income and expenditure budgets are grounded in the facts of real life.

Poor marketing and advertising

There are a myriad of reasons why marketing and advertising goes awry. Some are listed below.

• Organisers failed to:
• provide great copy text and images for the formal Call for Entries - result: the call failed to entreat!
• keep up with what artists read - and ignore - if you want to get the word out in the right places
• identify the influencers and those known for promoting calls for entries
• get the Call for Entry seen in all the right places!!

TIP: Organisers can help minimise costs. Digital entries have over the year minimised the impact of the expense of submitting artwork for very many artists. But making suitable arrangements (eg regional pick-ups) to help those who get selected to transport their pre-selected work to the location is always very welcome.

TIP: My coverage of Calls for Entry - from the date they are issued - is directly related to how much of an effort an art competition or art society puts in to providing me with material for my blog post. It used to be much better in the past.......

"It's worked before - Let's do it again!"

This is a really lazy reason for REPEATING the extension of a Call for Entry.

Whatever the reason for extending the deadline, the priority for the following year MUST be to address the issue(s) which caused people NOT TO APPLY.

TIP: If you keep extending the deadline, then absolutely nobody takes the stated deadline seriously - and artists think they'll have time to apply when the extension is granted.

The important thing to do is to make it very clear that THIS YEAR THINGS HAVE CHANGED!