10 Ways to Add Art to Your Events

When you create a setting where attendees are inspired and in touch with their emotions, you’re building a lasting memory of your event.

Incorporating art into an event is an opportunity not only to educate attendees but also to tap into their creative sides. Combining music enhances the experience even more.

Here are 10 ways to add art to your event.

1. Offer a plein air painting class

The term “plein air” comes from the French phrase meaning "in the open air," and focuses on incorporating natural light and shadows into a work of art. Local galleries can help you find artists who offer outdoor painting sessions for groups, or you can search for one who’s a member of a regional society, such as the Boston Pleinair Society. The artist can help you choose a setting on the resort grounds or nearby, will come ready with all the supplies (including the easels), and can package the finished pieces for attendees to take home.

2. Hire a live painter

Live and performance painters are skilled at creating works of art on demand for events like cocktail parties. A new genre, speed painting, is part entertainment and part art. Well-known speed painter Jessica Haas can create a painting in less than a minute, and has performed at corporate events for FedEx, Michelin Tires Inc, Porsche, and others.

3. Organize an art auction for charity

Whether it’s a high-energy live auction as part of the final evening dinner or a silent auction that runs throughout the meeting, you can use art as a centerpiece of an experience that builds community and gives back. Shipping large pieces can be expensive, so factor that cost into the budget in advance. A good place to start looking for an auctioneer is through your local CVB or DMC, or by seeking recommendations in one of the online meeting planner chats.

4. Take a street art tour

Street art corridors exist in the most unexpected destinations, and can be a fun focus for an afternoon tour. The best-known in the U.S. is Miami’s Wynwood Walls, an open-air museum of street art and graffiti with rotating exhibits. The entire neighborhood is also home to many murals on the surrounding commercial buildings, warehouses, and sidewalks. Other cities known for their street art tours include Cincinnati, home to the nonprofit  ArtWorks, which works with both youths and professional artists to turn walls into public art. Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles all offer mural tours. Even Boise, Idaho has its own street art experience, Freak Alley Gallery, an open-air, multi-artist mural gallery located downtown.

5. Host a private reception at a museum 

Many art museums specialize in group events, and you can also include a private, after-hours tour with a docent. Among the venues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art  in New York are the Temple of Dendur and The Great Hall, which can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees. The Art Institute of Chicago not only overlooks the Chicago skyline and Millennium Park, but has several event spaces, including courtyards and gardens, accommodating groups of up to 500 for a banquet and 1,000 for a reception. 

6. Include the artist in a gallery tour

Why not get attendees out of the ballroom and host an event at a gallery? Better yet, bring in an artist to speak to the group about their creative process. In Columbus, the Short North Arts District showcases the community’s vibrant art scene and can help you choose a venue.

7. Bring in a graphic recorder

Graphic recording is a form of illustration where an artist translates the conversation at a meeting into a visual map, using text and images on large paper or digital tablets. Graphic recording is not only fun to watch in person, but the final product can then be hung on the wall at headquarters. The International Forum of Visual Practitioners is a good place to start your search for a graphic recorder, and there are also agencies such as ImageThink that specialize in placing artists.

8. Use projection mapping

Projection mapping can transform a ballroom into a work of art. Unlike static artwork, mapped rooms create a variety of experiences for viewers, turning walls into realistic-looking settings. The technology can be expensive, with the cost for an immersive 360-degree indoor experience starting at $10,000 per day.

9. Create collaborative art  

Not only does this form of collaboration get people talking, it creates a lasting piece of art that a company can bring back from the meeting to hang in the office. There are several options for group art: For a mural, you can unroll a banner along a wall and encourage people to contribute to it over the course of the meeting; an image can be pre-sketched and then divided into sections for each person to paint; or people can paint on their own small canvas squares, which can be combined into a collage.

10. Choose the gift of photography

Attendees are seeking authentic, local experiences when they travel, and nothing says that more than a nature or bird photo taken by a local photographer. These can be ordered matted in cellophane sleeves, and make the perfect pillow gifts. Some artists also donate a portion of their sales to charity, which makes attendees appreciate them even more.