By protection, we mean establishing good policies and clear statements about how we do business, about insurance and liability coverage, who is responsible for what, and what to do when things go wrong. Clearly stated policies create trust and ease-of-mind for you, your participants and your vendors.
We provide you with a downloadable template Artist-Workshop agreement. This is a benefit of your Membership. We hired a legal firm to create this contract especially for our artists. While we cannot require you to send this to your participants, we strongly advise that you take advantage of our fillable pdf contract. You can send a copy to each of your participants through a 3rd-party e-sign provider as soon as a customer registers, with a request for signature. See step-by-step instructions.
You may edit the contract to change any of the terms that don't serve your workshops. Your downloaded copy is yours to use as you wish. You can you use your own contract, if you have one. The important thing is to have a legal instrument that clearly states what you are providing, when, for how much, how to contact you for concerns or questions, your cancellation policies, and the governing law, and is signed and dated by both parties. All this is covered for you in our Workshop-Artist.pdf document.
Keeping a Deposit and Refunds escrow amount in your bank account is especially important in this time of rapidly changing pandemic situations, and even more so if you’re offering deposits. You have complete control over setting your refund policies. You don’t have much control over ‘things that happen’.
If you are offering a Deposit payment for your workshop or retreat, keep the amount you have stated that you will refund (how much and under what conditions) in your banking reserves. You can do this by simple accounting, or by transferring and holding funds in a savings account, or some other method that works for you. Just don’t spend all the money until your workshop is fulfilled and delivered, so you don’t get caught off-guard.
Liability Insurance is insurance that indemnifies you against for bodily injuries, medical payments, advertising injuries and more. As a serious artist business, you should have a business liability policy already. If you don’t, consider shopping around and doing it now.
Extended Liability insurance can usually be purchased very affordably as a rider to your regular business insurance account per trip. Contact your insurance agent to consult with them regarding extended liability. These policies are generally for 1 million dollars, and are intended to protect your assets in case of injury to your participants.
We all know that bad things can happen when you travel. It’s after all part of the Adventure. Though you may pay 5 to 10 percent of your trip cost for travel insurance, travel insurance can be and often is worth the investment for its potential to help reimburse you for hundreds of thousands of dollars of covered travel-related expenses like emergency evacuation, medical bills, and costs related to trip cancellation and interruption.
Our advice: just do it. Get travel insurance for yourself, and encourage your participants to do the same..
Trip insurance is recommended for travelers by the U.S. State Department, further underlining its worth. (Source: Traveler’s Checklist - travel.state.gov)
You can require travel insurance for your participants or not. Unless your vendors require it, it’s totally up to you. It is likely safer these days to require it especially for overseas trips, but we realize the challenge of putting requirements in the way of purchases.
We do urge that you inform your participants whether travel insurance is required, provided or recommended.
You can add a travel insurance requirement to your Artist-Workshop agreement, so that it becomes part of the contract. If you add a requirement to your Artist-Workshop agreement, be sure and add the requirement to the information in the Workshop Description area or the Good To Know area of your workshop.
Most vendors that provide lodgings or property use accommodations will have a contract or agreement for you to sign. If they don’t offer one, request it. Make sure you get your arrangements in writing! Read the document carefully, to make sure all the details you’ve discussed are included as you understand them.
Download your Artist-Workshop Agreement Template.
Refer to Artist-Workshop Agreement in the Green Room for help implementing your Artist-Workshop Agreement.
Have comments, suggestions or questions for the Green Room? If you have a question, there's probably someone else with the same question. We'll do our best to answer, and contact. Suggestions are always welcome. We're committed to making the Golden Dragonfly Academy for Art work for artists.
Send us a note and let us know!