Wisley Garden is a stunning venue with high visitor numbers and vast sales giving exhibitors huge exposure for their work. Our show will once again coincide with the Flower Show when visitor numbers really go through the roof!

This year we will have a few changes to the trail as the new entrance will be up and running so visitors will be approaching from a different path. The rose garden will be part of the trail, as will the top of the rockery, areas of woodland, the paths around the glasshouse lake (although we have decided not to include the glasshouse on the route so there will be fewer possibilities for smaller scale sculptures) and the two walled gardens where there is some wall hanging space available.

We want to make this a really impressive show so we will be aiming to select around 110 sculptures of large and medium scale (don’t forget a large number of Wisley visitors are children who touch, climb, hit and poke our prized pieces of art work, even though we try and protect more delicate things, so please do bear that in mind when sending in your applications). Last year the new booklet style trail guide worked extremely well so we will be producing something similar again, this means we need lots of brilliant photos to showcase lots of the sculptures so please take care with the images you submit (good quality, nice clear pics with decent backgrounds please). Advice on photos can be found in the ‘Publicity Guide for Photographs’ document on this website.

All exhibitors will have to perform stewarding duties efficiently to uphold our reputation and maximise the success of the trail and there are new legal requirements that mean all stewards will have to have full credit card machine training.

Important considerations before submitting works: Are you…. Up to the challenge of producing a creative, toddler- proof sculpture and fixings? Can you be approachable and diplomatic at all times? Able to cope with the novelty of a queue to purchase sculpture? Practice your smile for the task of handing out trail maps at the entrance…

Whatever aspect of showing sculpture at Wisley interests you, remember it’s a group venture requiring collaborative efforts from all taking part, from joyfully cleaning bird poo from the sculptures to enthusiastically clinching that large sale for someone else’s work. As well as a mountain of other jobs for which I will be looking for volunteers!

You only have until 20th April to get your applications in so act now!

Here’s to another successful show in 2019.

Many thanks for all your help and contributions.

Kind regards,

Alison Catchlove