A few details before using Art Lab
For all contracted and confirmed Art Lab collaborators:
Once you contract is approved and prior to your event / exhibition:
We’ll need any promotional information you have for the event/workshop so we can add it to the Art Lab website, if you’d like our help promoting it:
- Submit the graphics, final event details & description and social media / website links for your exhibition here: Event & Exhibition Links and Graphics Form
- If you have a poster or postcards to promote the event, please drop them off at Art Lab – you can hang the poster in the window. Check the Art Lab event calendar for open hours.
Rules for using the space and other smart questions:
- Art Lab has a maximum occupancy of 49.
- You may be sharing the space with other users (mostly workshops evenings or weekends). The more the merrier, right?
- Art and event SALES ARE PERMITTED. There is NO COMMISSION taken by Art Lab Fort Collins. If you sell it, you keep it.
If you sell something, you are required to collect sales tax and pay City sales taxes (see below). - You CAN host a reception in the space, but only complimentary alcoholic beverages are permitted by obtaining a Liquor License through the proper channels at the City of Fort Collins. Absolutely NO alcohol sales are allowed. Sounds boring, huh? Just get creative — who wouldn’t love to attend an art opening that served milk shakes?
- Yes, the space is insured.
- Clean up after yourself. Remember, if you do not follow the Art Lab checklist and the main space or the back room is a mess, you will be charged accordingly.
- You CAN teach a class in the space. We have tables and chairs, and LOVE the idea of a hands-on learning experience. (Classes only require a one-day commitment).
- If you don’t show up to your event, the $50 deposit will not be returned.
- If you cancel your event within 60 days of your start date, the $50 deposit will not be returned.
- Share your Facebook, Instagram and web pages and FOLLOW ART LAB on Instagram and like us on Facebook. If you set up a Facebook Event, please make Art Lab a cohost. We’ll do our part to promote YOUR Art Lab experience.
Sales Licenses and Taxes are your responsibility
PLEASE READ-TAX INFO: You DO have to submit sales taxes on any art or product sales at Art Lab for each date, or monthly reporting or you can be fined by the city!
- Submit your sales tax monthly, quarterly or yearly dependent on your volume. You DO have to submit a Zero return or you will get fined.
- You need to have a City of Fort Collins Sales Tax License and Colorado State Sales Tax License to sell anything at Art Lab. County is included in the state.
- Mobile vendors (selling out of a truck or other vehicle, like a cart) must have a sales tax license for their main office location. Add jurisdiction “sites” to your existing sales tax license. There is no additional fee for these sites. Requests for non-physical sites (mobile vendors who sell in jurisdictions outside the one in which they have an account) can be made by writing. Visit the State’s instruction page for more details.
Mobile business must inform the Department of Revenue (DOR) that they are making sales in specific local jurisdictions, even when the jurisdictions are home-rule (which collect their own taxes). Home-rule cities may have special district taxes collected by the Department of Revenue (Denver is an example, which has RTD and CD taxes collected by the state).
Marketing your show is your responsibility:
- Websites are a great way to get many eyes on your work. Send us a link to your website and we’ll include on your event listing.
- Facebook and Instagram are free tools to show off your work. Utilizing social media is one of the best ways to get more eyes on your work.
- We will do our part to promote your event on Art Lab’s social media channels (1,200+ followers on Instagram and 3,300+ followers on Facebook). Email us photos that represent your work for our social media.
- Add your event to all local online calendars and listings.
- Word of mouth is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to market your artwork. Invite people who you meet every day to the galleries that show your work and start conversations about why you’re passionate about creativity. Don’t forget about bank tellers, the postman, cashiers, your physicians, mechanics, etc. These people all have homes with walls that they hang some form of art on.
- Email blasts: make a poster using a tool like Canva.com with a picture of your artwork, then include it in an email with a subject line such as “Check out my new artwork. Be the first to own it!”
- Make sure to include links to your websites and social media in email blasts.
- Postcards are an inexpensive way to show your work, website, and locations where your art can be seen. Local printers can help! We’re big fans of ColorPro Printing and Ink Works.
- If you have a poster or promotional flyers feel free to hang it up in the front window of Art Lab or drop if off at Toolbox Creative (325 Cherry St., No. 104) and we’ll hang it for you.