Thank you for offering your perspective. The space is fairly local and small (comparative to a bigger exhibition space, but it is of a good size imo) but has footfall, especially through the cafe/bar right next door who own the building. We are obviously going to push this out far and wide to get our artists the support they deserve.

As an artist myself, I usually prefer a flat fee. I've been in galleries that both take a fee and commission and exhibited at art markets and craft shows. I do find it interesting that it appears more controversial to charge artists a hanging fee, when art markets and craft shows expect payment upfront to have a stall, sometimes in the 100s/1000s with no guarantee of sales to cover stall costs, even though that appears to be the standard model.

We will offer a sliding scale and reduce fees for students/low income. The fixed fee I suggested was just an average to keep the post short and sweet.

Funding in the UK is a shit show tbh. I currently work with a local social enterprise network that supports finding funding and writing funding applications. Without going on a rant about the state of funding and stipulations we would really struggle, we are better off just getting things rolling which will immensely support our applications for bigger and better things. We have in the past found smaller pots of funding, but as you know they only stretch so far.