Artists participating in GO will open their studios on Saturday, September 8 and Sunday, September 9 from 11am to 7pm both days.

Artists must be in their studios from 11am to 7pm both days, and visitors are welcome to stop by at any time during those hours.

Brooklyn is an incredibly big place - 73 square miles, to be exact.  Even though 1,861 artists are opening their doors to you on September 8 and 9, we know you’ll never be able to see all of them. We thought about running GO over multiple weekends with different areas of the borough highlighted on different days, but in the end, we felt it was important that GO happen on one weekend throughout Brooklyn - a coming together of sorts.

If you are stressing out at the sheer number of studios and the amount of ground to cover, here are a few key things to keep in mind:

• Above it all, you just need to see five studios.  While you could try and see all 1,861 studios, the reality is you just need to check in to five in order to be eligible to nominate three.
• As a strategy, you might aim to see studios within your own neighborhood and choose another area to discover.
• Use the website to browse artists, search and add them to your itinerary. 

We know some of you are going to be serious Type-A voters and we get that, too.  For those of you who really want to cover some ground, we’ve created an “Awesome” board to highlight your achievements. How do we calculate your awesomeness? It’s a secret sauce based on your check-ins, amount of distance you’ve traveled, number of neighborhoods you’ve crossed, and special bonus points for visiting neighborhoods where there are fewer than 10 registered studios.

We’ve been working very hard on maps!

Printed maps will be available as we get closer to the open studio weekend and we will be releasing details about where to find them as we near September 8 and 9. We’ll send all registered voters (and artists) an email with logistics, so be sure to register now.

During GO, each registered artist will be given a unique number, which will identify his/her studio.  The number we assign to you will need to be clearly visible on an official GO poster on your studio door or inside your studio.  

Numbers will be released on September 5, 2012 at 10am EST. We’ll be sending the code by email and you’ll also be able to find your code by logging into GO website and looking at your dashboard.  

We ask that you write it clearly and legibly on the poster we will give you for your studio and suggest that you use a Sharpie or similar thick marker, so it can be easily seen by voters.  Please follow the instructions for filling out your door poster.

During GO, we ask that voters “check in” to each studio they visit.  Checking into a studio is incredibly important because voters will only be allowed to nominate if they’ve checked into at least five studios.  Additionally, they will only be allowed to nominate studios from their list of check-ins.

Voters will be able to check in to studios using any of the following methods:

• SMS Text Messaging
• GO iphone app
• Mobile website 
• Website 

If you have limited cell phone service in your building, the GO iphone app is designed to cache a voter’s check in and send it once signal is restored.  Most SMS service will allow users to text without signal and re-send once they come into range.  Additionally, voters can write down your code and enter it on the GO website.  

For those buildings with limited cell phone service, you might consider writing down your code (or creating small calling cards) for visitors so they can easily take your code with them.

During GO, we ask that you “check in” to each studio you visit.  Checking into a studio is incredibly important because you will only be allowed to nominate if you’ve checked into at least five studios.  Additionally, you will only be allowed to nominate from a list of studios where you checked in (e.g., you can only nominate studios you’ve actually seen and your check-in is verification that you visited).

To check in, you’ll use a code that is assigned to each artist and can be found on posters located at every studio. You will be able to check in to studios using any of the following methods:

• SMS Text Messaging
• GO iphone app
• Mobile website 
• Website 

Directions for SMS text messaging and download of the iPhone app will be on posters in each studio.  

If you find yourself in a building where there is limited cell phone service, the GO iphone app is designed to cache your check in and send it once signal is restored.  Most SMS service will allow you to text without signal and re-send once you come into range.  Additionally, you can write down artist codes and enter them on the GO website when you return to your computer in the evening.

By default, your activities (itinerary, if you choose to create one, and check-ins) are public, but you can elect to make them private.  Your nominations are private and cannot be shared.  

Voters, we encourage you to keep your itinerary public because it will allow you to share your “must see” list with friends.  By leaving your check-ins public, it allows us to create a dynamic map of activity in Brooklyn during the open studio weekend. If you decide to keep your check-ins public, we will never share the exact time and date you checked into a studio.

To change your settings, after logging into the site, navigate to the Hi [username]! menu in the upper right and go to settings. You’ll see two check boxes where you can elect to make your check-ins and itinerary public or private.

The short answer is yes.

We recognize that you may be inherently familiar with other artists’ work and that you may be able to quickly duck out and visit nearby studios that are next door from your own. In this, we allow you to be a voter, but remember you have to be in your own studio during the open studio weekend, so even if you quickly check into another artist’s studio you should be within sight distance of your own so that you can greet any potential visitors.

To become a voter, please login to the website with your account and look for the “Become a Voter” button on your dashboard.  You’ll need to agree to a terms of service prior to voting.

The website will have an itinerary feature, where registered voters are encouraged to create lists of artists they’d like to see during the open studio weekend.  Since you need to be in your studio and can’t fully take advantage of an itinerary, we suggest that you use this feature to create a list of studios that you recommend and share it with others. It’s a great way to share a “must see” list of studios with friends.

If you’re having trouble accessing your voter or artist account, try these tips:

1. Make sure you visit http://www.gobrooklynart.org/login to access your profile. The page should say “Login” at the top, and not “Register.”

2. Use the same form of authentication—Google, Facebook, Twitter, or an e-mail address and password—that you used to create your account. When users have trouble logging in, it is often because they are using the wrong email address or authentication method to access their accounts.

3. If you can’t remember your password, click “Forgot password” to have it emailed to you. If you see the message below, then you may have registered using another email address or a different authentication method.

4. Make sure you’re using a supported browser. Users of unsupported browsers sometimes have trouble logging in.

You’ll notice that we present random blocks of artist profiles in various areas of the GO website. You’ve probably seen the blocks that display on the homepage, but there are also blocks visible on the dashboards of voters.  In both places, those blocks blocks draw randomly from the complete list of studios every time the page is viewed.

As you move throughout the site, we’ve worked hard to randomize other areas where profiles are seen.  For instance, if you do a search, browse artists by neighborhood or view a voter’s itinerary - those are all places where we work to randomize the list of artist profiles to even out traffic.  In some of these instances, we randomize on a 24-hour time period. At the start of the day we randomly draw an order and this random draw will refresh and change 24 hours later. We do this for a couple of reasons.  First, if you do a search, we don’t want to constantly randomize the list that you see as you page through results (you can imagine how confusing that would be).  Second, this helps keep the database calls down to a minium on our servers, which is important if we want the site to stay fast and quick to answer your queries. 

With any site launch, there’s always a bit of trial and error. How we randomize results may change a bit as we get closer to the open studio weekend. 

In order to participate in GO, artists had to register and publish their profiles via their dashboard prior to the artist registration deadline.  If you are not seeing your profile, it may be because you registered for GO, but you never published your artist profile.

To confirm, login to the website and you should see a message on your dashboard that indicates your profile was not published and, therefore, you didn’t meet the deadline and cannot participate as an artist in GO.

If, however, your dashboard displays a message that says your profile is published, then you should try searching for your name by going to the browse artists page.  In the search box, enter your last name and hit “go.”  You should see your profile come up in the search results. If you still can’t find your profile after searching, you can file a support ticket by following instructions in our support area.

After the artist registration deadline passes, you can no longer edit your studio profile because of our print publication deadlines.  We understand that studios come and go, and, also, that a commitment you made to open your studio may change as things come up. While you cannot change your profile, you can cancel your open studio by deleting your GO account:

1. Login to the GO artist portal.

2. Navigate to “Hi, [your username]” on the upper right hand corner of the page. Select SETTINGS from the drop-down list.

3. At the bottom of the SETTINGS page, click the checkbox that says “Delete my account forever.”

Keep in mind that even if you cancel and delete your account now, your studio will be removed from the website and mobile application, but will still be included on printed maps.  We ask you to put a sign on your door during the open studio weekend indicating that your studio is no longer open.

Short answer: We are not sure yet, but your feedback will help us decide.

GO is designed so that it can be run in subsequent years, but we have not made any decisions about going forward just yet.  As we move through this first installment, we are taking careful notes about the lessons we learn along the way.  You’ll also see us survey all types of participants during GO and we’ll be holding town hall meetings after the exhibition opens.  As we collect and analyze your feedback, we’ll be thinking about how what changes we might make to improve GO for a possible future. We encourage all participants to comment on Tumblr posts and leave feedback publicly, so we can engage in a dialog about the process.

Also, if you haven’t already, consider joining the GO email list. We’ll definitely send an announcement if we decide to GO again.

This is a question we get a lot and the answer is we are not quite sure just yet because we are still assessing the volunteer situation and how best to assign people.  Most likely, volunteers will be assigned to main meet points that we will be running for information distribution and they will not be assigned to individual studio buildings.

If you feel like you need help during the open studio weekend, we encourage you to consider asking a few friends to help you.  This could be anything from helping studios visitors enter and exit your building to keeping you company during the weekend and helping watch over things if you need to take a lunch break.

Yes! We are busy designing signs right now and getting them on our printing press; here’s what you can expect.  Each artist will get a packet that will contain an allotment of:

• Maps to give to voters who visit your studio and want to pick one up from you.
• Studio Door Sign.  This will be a poster where you’ll write in your unique Artist Code so visitors can see it.  
• Wayfinding signs.  Various signs that will have room for you to write in arrows and other directional information.
• General GO posters and postcards.  If you know business owners in your area who would post a sign or take a small stack of cards, it would be wonderful if you’d help distribute these in your area.

We are still working out what the allotments will be and logistics around getting them to you.  Likely we will have a series of meetups where you’ll be asked to come get your packet, but stay tuned for details as we get closer to the open studio weekend.