I’m not able to hone my Google search enough to find anything meaningful on this. And I doubt there is a one size fits all answer, so I’m asking here.
Let’s say you pay $100 to your local Art’s center to take a basket weaving class/workshop. What percentage of that is the instructor going to get?
I’m assuming the instructor is not the owner, nor are they a full or part time employee, but are being paid only for conducting the class/workshop itself.
I am further assuming the class/workshop is a short duration event…maybe 4-6 hours one afternoon, or a few (4-6) sessions spread over a few weeks, with each session maybe an hour or so long.
Also assume the location where the class/workshop is held is not funded but builds in some percentage of the class tuition to cover their overhead.
Helping a friend who wants to hire instructors to teach in their space. She wanted to bounce the idea around and I was the bouncee. The only thing I can think of similar around here are those canvas painting nights. I know a lady who does those in other people’s space and she gets $25 a person, and
must get $200 minimum (at least 8 students). She provides all the art supplies part out of her cut. I’ve seen places using her charge $30 a person for the evening. Basically all the “studio” was providing in that instance was lights, AC and space for 2 or 3 hours. Nothing stayed there afterwards, so its not directly analogous to a class that ran over a couple of weeks.
My gf has taken flower arranging classes. She does it as a hobby, her classmates are all florists. Each class costs $125, with every penny going to the instructor, who then uses the money to cover her expenses. Whatever is left is hers to keep.
The problem with this model is that one instructor would spend everything on supplies. Her students loved her, but she wasn’t making any money so she quit. The replacement instructor spent as little as possible on supplies, buying old, dying flowers from her wholesaler and pocketing most of the cash. Her students realized they were working with substandard material and her class size shriveled.
What do you mean by “local Arts center”? That could be anything from a private, for-profit enterprise to the adult education division of a K-12 district, many of which will arrange to offer classes at private locations, if there are enough students to justify the expense of paying an instructor and renting the space.
I know someone who teaches art classes, and it varies. She has taught at one place in return for her own studio space. She had to teach a certain number of workshops, I think one per quarter. At another place the first class she taught for nothing, and subsequent classes she gets half the tuition paid (and students pay a materials fee or buy their own materials). She writes up a description of the class, the venue does all the marketing, fee collection, etc. I think the venue also decided what the cost would be, aside from the materials. The venue decides what the minimum number of students would be to make it worthwhile but she gets to tell them the maximum number of students it’s realistic to have in order to give quality instruction.
Both of them came into existence after there was a major kerfuffle about the amount being offered to top fiber talent at a potentially major fiber festival. [The big problem, as I recall it, was that the major publishing company sponsoring the festival tried to offload a lot of their financial risk onto the teachers, with some bonus pay cuts (and possibly some unkind scheduling) mixed in].
