The Art Trail Organiser For Exhibitors
Welcome TATOE, a web application for organising and participating in art trails.
This website is still under development
Introduction
The Art Trail is a collaborative event where artists can exhibit their work in garden venues. Some artists with large gardens choose to act as venue hosts, inviting other guest artists to exhibit in their space. Venues can also be commercial locations.
TATOE is a simple tool to manage this invitation process, minimising many to-and-fro emails. It’s designed with flexibility in mind — people can change their minds, step back from hosting, or accept new invitations, all without disrupting the flow of the project.
🎨 Participating in an Art Trail
You will be either an admin (not necessarily exhibiting), or an artist who is exhibiting.
Once your trail project has been set up by an admin (see below), here’s all you need to do:
🏠 Choose Your Role
Decide whether you want to be a Venue Lead (to host other artists at your venue). (If you’re not a “venue lead” you’re an “artist” hoping to be an invited “guest”)
If you choose to be a venue lead, set the number of guest spots (=spaces) you have available.
- You can opt out of being a venue lead at any time. If you do opt out, any currently-accepted guest artists at your venue will be “released” and visible to other venue leads, who can then invite them. You also become “just” an artist yourself, waiting to be invited to another venue.
- You’ll see a list of artists looking to be hosted — invite those who ❤️ you.
- You can change the number of your spots at any time.
- You will not be able to invite more artists than the number of spots you set.
- You will set the venue address.
If you’re an Artist (wanting to be a guest):
- When signed in, you’ll see a list of available venues.
- Click the ❤️ on any venues you’d like to be invited to. You can click it off again at any time.
- Venue leads will then see your interest and may send you an invite.
- You can accept or decline any invitation.
- You will not be able to see any venues that are full (all spots have assigned guests).
If you’re a Guest (already accepted a venue spot):
- You’ll see a only your venue, and the info provided for it, and latest messages for the venue.
- you can “uninvite” yourself, and become an “artist”, hoping to be invited to another venue.
🔄 Live Updates & Flexibility
- Venue leads, guests (and artists who can simply unregister) can change their minds at any time — invite, accept, revoke.
- The project status updates in real time (within seconds), so everyone sees the current state in their browser.
🧭 Final Stages
Once venues are full or invitations have settled:
- Venue leads will only see their confirmed guest artists.
- Guests will only see the venue where they’re accepted/agreed.
- Accepted guests become invisible to other venue leads — no double bookings!
- Of course, there’s a possibility of having a Billy Nomates…
When the deadline for organising the event arrives:
- The project admin will lock updates.
- Everyone can still log in to view the final setup.
🔧 For Admins
Admins have a bird’s-eye view of the entire trail:
- See who’s been invited where, and which artists are still unassigned.
- View a text summary of the current status — perfect for copying into emails.
- Export the full status as an Excel file — useful for creating publicity materials or documentation.
🔧 Privacy
- Artists (admin, venue leads and guest artists) do not need an email address to use TATOE.
- Admin sets the Art Trail name, and artist logins. You do not need to use your real name. Of course it will be helpful if other users recognise you!
Who I am
I’m Steve Lympany, and I live in the south east of England. I’m a retired engineer and now doing a bit of art. I also write software as a hobby. I don’t expect to make tons of dosh from TATOE, but I would like to cover my web hosting costs. There is a Ko-fi button floating around on this page somewhere - “buy me a coffee” (shown as lympany.art - my other website). I hope your donations help cover my hosting/database costs.
Status
As of July 2025, TATOE is a prototype developed soley with my own ideas (but with a bit of experience in participating in art trails myself), so I’m sure there are plenty of features that could be added. Suggestions welcomed. Hopefully there aren’t too many glitches. Please use the contact form below. I need some guinea pigs to test it!
What is TATOE?
TATOE is a pair of web applications designed for art trail management.
(A) For the organisers (the owner and admins)
The owner creates the Art Trail project, with nothing more than the name. Then he/she creates an admin, with a username and password for the project. There can be more than one admin in an Art Trail. He can remove them admins at any time. The owner can have more than one Art Trail: He can delete them and pause them.
The admin also uses this app. He sets the trail dates, creates all the exhibitor sign-in credentials - easily done from a CSV file (from Excel). The admin can see the status of the art trail - who’s going where, who has not been invited, who is registered etc. He can export a detailed summary that could then be emailed to others who are not using TATOE.
Admin also exports data that can be use for input/organising brochures and leaflets.
(B) For the exhibitors/participants
Admin will give you a username, and password, and also the name of the Art Trail to log in with. First, if you choose to participate in the event, press “register” at the top of your dashboard. If you want to be a venue lead, press the button for that, and enter the number of spots you have for other artists (you are a artist/guest if you are not a venue lead). Then you can go ahead and start inviting, accepting, declining and revoking!
It’s all live - when admin, guest or venue lead makes a change, all users who are logged in will see the change within a few seconds. TATOE is very fluid, people can change their minds at any time - later decide you don’t want to be a venue lead, or change the number of guest spots at your venue, and even “unregister” to leave the project. The art trail project gets locked down by admin at the deadline… which he chooses.
Getting started
First, as the potential owner, you will need to contact me for a password. Art Trail exhibitors and admins do not need a password from me:; the owner will give a password for the admins, the admins give passwords to the artists exhibiting.