Nickel Plate Arts Executive Director Aili McGill gave a brief update at the Noblesville Common Council Dec. 3 meeting.
Nickel Plate Arts also presented to the council in June.
McGill provided an update on the organization’s 2019 goals, such as the NobleMade Gift Shop, events and promotions, public art, identifying steps for an arts master plan and visiting the nine other cultural districts. Noblesville is one of 10 Indiana Arts Commission Statewide Cultural Districts. The other nine are Fishers, Carmel, Bloomington, Columbus, Madison, Nashville, Jeffersonville, Terre Haute and Tippecanoe.
McGill said trips to the cultural districts will allow Nickel Plate Arts to process data and create a 2020 arts master plan.
McGill said the NobleMade Gift Shop was the Nickel Plate Arts’ biggest project of 2019.
“Our goal this year was to open the doors and see how many Noblesville creators, makers and artists we could include in that space and get some sense on how people would react to a gift shop really full of Noblesville products,” McGill said. “We had more than 80 vendors, and 72 of those have sold at least one item. That’s a really huge sell rate.”
At the time of the council meeting, McGill said NobleMade had sold 998 items since opening. The average transaction was $29.79. Gross sales totaled $11,846.37. The gift shop has four part-time employees.
McGill also provided statistics about the gift shop, noting that Thursdays are the slowest days for sales and Fridays are the heaviest. Saturdays see the most foot traffic, and most sales happen between 5 and 7 p.m.
For 2020, some of the goals McGill cited are expanding Valentine’s Day experiences around the downtown, capitalizing on the annual Welcome to Fairyville event, creating more alley activation and continuing to expand and promote holiday events.
“We want to add product testing and add an art-of-business training component to NobleMade,” McGill said.
McGill said an asphalt grant has been applied for, with the objective of adding permanent artwork to Noblesville roads. Moreover, several alley archways are planned for downtown, similar to the new archway at Seminary Park.
For more, visit nickelplatearts.org.
