Hosts

There would be no Melbourne Festival Art & Architecture Trail without the local people who open up their homes, gardens and businesses to welcome artists each year. Annually, around 140 artists are hosted in over 70 venues from small cottages to public halls.

Fortunately many of our hosts open their homes for artists each year. However hosts sometimes take a year off due to other commitments or even move house so we are always looking for new venues. If you would like to open your home or business to host an Artist we would love to hear from you.

The Art & Architecture Trail covers High Street, Market Place, Derby Road, Blanch Croft, Chapel Street, Potter Street, Castle Street, Church Street, the area surrounding Melbourne Parish Church and Melbourne Hall and Penn Lane.

If you offer to host artists they will need a suitable space to display their work. If they have paintings or pieces which need to be hung we will supply display boards so that your walls aren’t damaged, if you have a table it would be useful but we can borrow one from elsewhere if required. The Trail features a mix of styles of work and we endeavour to find a good match in terms of the size and type of work in each building. We can suggest ways to block off the private areas, visitors do respect that they are in private buildings and don’t intrude.

Opening up to host an artist isn’t too onerous a task. We generally put artists who have taken part before with new hosts so that they know how things work. You will need to be there for the Artist to set up but you don’t need to “look after” the Artist all weekend, just show them the kettle and bathroom and carry on as normal, make sure you leave the artist your mobile number in case they need to contact you – usually to say your friends are at your house asking where to meet you!

Please can you email using the contact page on this site, call 07765 819428 or send a note to 49 Church Street, Melbourne, DE73 8EJ to say that you would like to find out more about how to be part of the Art and Architecture Trail. We are happy to pop in for a chat to explain exactly what you are committing yourselves to and to see the space available.

We are extremely grateful to all of our hosts for their support.