Open studios: Regional promotion of art tourism

‘Open Studio’ events have become increasingly common in the United Kingdom and the USA in the first years of the twenty-first century. Artists working in different media collaborate to open their studios, or present exhibitions, simultaneously, over a small region. Shared publicity promotes tourism, which leads to sales and commissions for the artists, and extra revenue in the regional infrastructure. This paper examines the decision-making processes associated with these events from an Operational Research (OR) scientist's perspective, and reports on how the methodology of OR has contributed to such events, and may continue to do so.