Coming Home
17 September 2016 – 6 Jan 2017
Sponsorship Opportunities
Sponsoring an exhibition at Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery provides you with the unique opportunity to connect with both the borough of Maidstone and the greater Kent community, to build brand awareness and show your company’s support of the arts and cultural tourism.
Put your name in front of thousands of visitors both in the gallery and through our digital marketing.
Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery is recognised as one of the finest regional museums in the South East. The museum excels in its exhibition programming to attract new audiences and increase the number of repeat visits. This year marks 100 years since the Battle of the Somme during the WW1. The focus of ‘Coming Home is around a painting that shows the wounded soldiers returning from the Somme in 1916 to Maidstone East station.
This is an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with potential and existing customers which can lead to higher conversion rates and repeat business. It will increase the sponsors brand awareness through the implementation of the marketing initiatives for this exhibition.
Museum background
Museum visitors:
· 80,000 visitors in 2015
· 62% from the borough of Maidstone, 20% other Kent, 8% London, 7% rest of UK, 3% overseas
· 60% over age 25, 20% age 55+
Key features of this exhibition:
· Long running exhibition – over 3 months
· Free to enter to maximise visitors
· Predict 20,000 visitors to this exhibition
· Additional exhibits on loan from the Imperial War Museum, Science Museum and other local museums
· Several special events including formal talks and a re-enactment day
What your sponsor means to us
Sponsorship of this exhibition will allow us to:
· Get transport of loaned objects by Fine Art handlers from and to the Science Museum.
· Produce special school activity packs
· Put on special events such as the re-actor events
· produce the interpretation artwork, wall panels and vinyl’s
· Get special made mounts for objects.
The exhibition background
This important exhibition centres on the experiences of the people portrayed in two paintings which show scenes from 1916, exactly a century ago. The paintings are by Kent artist Frank Hyde. One is ‘Trones Wood’, a battle scene which the Royal West Kent Regiment fought as part of the Somme, and the other is of wounded soldiers returning from this front line to Maidstone East. ‘Wounded Soldiers’ was bought by the Borough for the people of the town and exhibited in the museum with a collection box to gather money for the war-wounded.
The paintings will be in two different rooms, the experiences of conflict and war at Trones contrasting with those of care and compassion at Maidstone East. Objects we’re showing come from our collections, also from the Science Museum, Imperial War Museum, Tunbridge Wells Museum and Royal West Kent’s. We have commissioned a sound artist to recreate the sound of Maidstone East – the hiss of steam, the bustle of medics and murmurings of the soldiers.