The fella in the picture is Saint Arnold of Soissons; supposedly he is the patron saint of hop pickers and Belgian brewers. It seems a little tenuous to me, but you learn something new every day.
You may have seen that we are running an exhibition and information space for Bristol Beer Week 2017. We've teamed up with the incredibly talented photographer Nicci Peet, who has taken shots at seven of Bristol's best breweries. If you follow her on Instagram, you can see some of the outtakes from the shoots.
I've never been involved in the running of an exhibition before, but it turns out it's quite expensive. Here are the base costs, which don't include any of the marketing we are doing to promote the event.
Gallery hire - £300
Cleaning fee - £30
Print costs - £171.56
Liability insurance - £35
Total - £536.56
We were really keen to secure a sponsor to help us with these costs, but sadly it seems marketing budgets are pretty thin on the ground this year. We had some really good conversations with independent local businesses, but it didn't quite work out.
As a result, we have decided to raise money through a patronage scheme. We are looking for 50 (well, 39 now actually) donations of £10 to cover that initial base cost. There is also a 'Patron Package' which includes a t-shirt, magnetic bottle opener and badge/sticker pack; a bargain at £25.
All patrons will have their name written in our printed programme and on the wall of our exhibition for the duration of Bristol Beer Week.
We've always shied away from running full on crowd funding campaigns, largely because of the fear of failure. However, we think that the concept of patronising an exhibition is quite a nice thing to be involved with.
The exhibition and information hub will, of course, take place regardless of whether we raise the funds we have asked for, but we greatly appreciate any contribution we receive to help with our costs.