During the 3 year sponsorship of the awards, the competition had lost all faith in Bonnie & Wild, and on 11th October, the end of their sponsorship was announced.
When the 2024 winners were announced on 24th July, the annual exhibition should have opened to the public some time afterwards, but the signals coming from B&W were that the exhibition was never likely to open.
Still in place was the exhibition from the 2022 competition and Bonnie & Wild had continued to use this exhibition for commercial purposes, far in excess of the 12 month period they were entitled to.
Once the end was announced, Bonnie & Wild agreed to remove the exhibition within 14 days, but the bulk of the exhibition was still in place 6 weeks later.
The competition discovered that Bonnie & Wild had contacted photographers privately to strike deals with them to keep the exhibition prints. B&W told photographers that they would remove the competition’s captions and place QR codes linking to their websites. B&W did not offer the photographers any payment.
B&W knew that the terms of the contract did not entitle them to do this. The exhibition prints were to be sold or donated to charity and any decisions on what happened to them had to be agreed jointly.
The competition wrote to B&W on 17th November and gave them 72 hours to remove the exhibition, but had no response.
The sponsorship agreement
Bonnie & Wild agreed to a 3 year deal in 2021 to provide display space and meet the competition’s exhibition costs up to a value of £15,000.
The competition’s costs can be found here – https://slpoty.co.uk/about/
The competition was initially led to believe that the display space would be the “entire venue” and could accommodate the competition’s standard exhibition of 150 prints. The display space turned out to be a corner of the venue consisting of 2 walls and a small corridor. It was not capable of displaying 150 prints.
The competition encountered other problems but chose to adapt and make the best of the sponsorship to ensure photographers were promoted.
Due to the small size of the exhibition space, the workaround was to split the exhibition of 150 framed prints into 3 smaller exhibitions and display each set of prints at 4 monthly intervals. See this article – 2021 exhibitions.
How did Bonnie & Wild benefit from the sponsorship?
The competition is a major photography competition that is recognised across the globe. It regularly achieves media coverage in the UK and overseas, as well as on TV. It has a series of 10 books which ship across the world, providing significant exposure for sponsors.
The competition promoted the Bonnie & Wild brand in all of its online and print based materials, in turn promoting the B&W brand across the globe. Bonnie & Wild benefitted from this.
The competition is especially popular with overseas visitors who make a point of coming to visit the competition’s exhibitions. In doing so, visitors spend money at the venues where the exhibitions are held. The competition encouraged a lot of visitors to the Bonnie & Wild venue.
The photographers and prize winners themselves promoted Bonnie & Wild. In sharing their news, they tagged and mentioned Bonnie & Wild’s channels and advertised the exhibitions. This drove visitors to the Bonnie & Wild venue, who in turn spent money at the venue.
How did the competition benefit from the sponsorship?
It didn’t. No increase in book sales occurred and no increase in income from entry fees has been recorded.
How big were the exhibitions?
As can be seen in the image above, the 2023 exhibition was advertised as the “largest exhibition” of Scottish Landscape photography. This was not true. The full complement of 150 prints was never delivered by B&W at any point during the 3 year sponsorship.
The exhibitions at B&W were in fact the smallest exhibitions the competition has ever held. Bonnie & Wild had commissioned 2 wall murals for their venue which were the largest prints the competition has ever displayed.
The competition would never allow murals of this size to be printed in a normal exhibition as this is unfair to other prize winners. Bonnie & Wild were able to do this due to a clause in the contract that gave them sole discretion as to how prints were displayed. The competition effectively had no say
What did Bonnie & Wild deliver?
Had Bonnie & Wild delivered what it agreed to in the contract, four full exhibitions should have been delivered (as of July 2024) and 400 photographers should have seen their work in print. Up to £60,000 should have been spent.
The tables below summarises what was actually delivered during the sponsorship
Exhibition 1 July 2021
Budget £15,000
Number of prints 150
Opened July 2021
Actual prints: 24
Money spent: £2632.80
Books sold: 0
Exhibition 2 July 2022
Budget £15,000
Number of prints 150
Opened Jan 2023
Actual prints: 50
Money spent: est £6000
Books sold: 0
Exhibition 3 July 2023
Budget £15,000
Number of prints 150
Opened: Never
Actual prints: 0
Money spent: £0
Books sold: 0
Exhibition 4 July 2024
Budget £15,000
Number of prints 150
Opened: Never
Actual prints: 0
Money spent: £0
Books sold: 0
The competition estimates that Bonnie & Wild saved £51,000
Notes:
1) The exact costs for exhibition 1 were known as the competition produced and paid for the prints. These were later paid by B&W. Other invoices were never paid.
2) The costs for exhibition 2 are not known as the prints were produced for B&W via a 3rd party printer. B&W would not divulge the exact costs, but the competition has worked out this estimate based on costs it has paid for an equal number of prints.
3) Over the term of the sponsorship, approximately 350 photographers never got to see their work in print and 200 hundred never got to see their work in an exhibition in any form.
Digital slideshows
Digital slideshows were provided to supplement the exhibition and were B&W’s idea. The slideshows were never intended to form the bulk of the exhibition but they accounted for 70-80% of the exhibition.
B&W used the slideshows to display adverts in between images as the displayed rolled. This was never agreed to and was discovered when reported to the competition by members of the public.
The slideshows were extremely poor and a very cheap substitute for the full exhibition. They ran on displays on an endless loop that could not be paused, and relied on visitors watching the entire loop to get relevant information.
Note: The competition’s exhibitions are always print based. Digital slideshows are never used and are not considered a cost. The competition is in possession of photographers image files and captions when producing the book. Digital slideshows therefore can be exported from these at no cost.
Why did photographers not sell any prints?
The competition has an established process to sell prints on behalf of photographers, and it works without difficulty. Photographers receive the profits of any sales.
Bonnie & Wild wanted to deviate from the established process. Schemes proposed by them were either impractical, impossible or could lead to photographers being exploited. In particular, B&W wanted to add their QR codes to photographers images. The competition viewed their use of QR codes in public spaces as unsafe.
Bonnie & Wild advertised that photographers would receive the profits, but B&W would take 40% of the profits.
Why were no books sold?
The competition’s books are vital to the ongoing operation of the competition. Book sales fund the exhibitions and provide prizes, but during the pandemic, the competition’s book sales dropped by 80%. As a result, it was unable to fund exhibitions.
The Bonnie & Wild sponsorship should have helped the competition recover by providing an outlet to sell books, and it was a condition of the contract that B&W explore ways to sell books.
Over the 3 year period, the competition frequently requested that B&W take books to be sold. B&W would agree to take books, but when it came to taking delivery, there was no follow up or excuses were made – e.g. “nowhere to store books”.
B&W never took delivery of any books and the competition’s book sales remained at pandemic levels throughout their sponsorship.
Sponsorship in the 4th year
Bonnie & Wild had the option under the contract to continue the sponsorship and duly gave verbal confirmation that the sponsorship would continue for a 4th year.
2024 is a special year for the competition as it marks the 10th anniversary of the awards, and a major milestone that the competition had been working towards for 10 years. The competition had an exceptionally good response from the media, including TV coverage, and it was hoped this would be built upon when it came to the exhibition.
Cause for concern began when B&W did not mention the competition in any capacity when the winners were announced on 24th July. No mention was made by B&W on social media, no press release came from them and none of the winners were congratulated by them.
Further cause for concern came when the competition received information that B&W had plans to host solo photographer’s exhibitions instead of the competition.
By October, when Bonnie & Wild had not put pen to paper, it became increasingly clear that the 2024 exhibition would never be delivered.
Promotions that never came to be
Frequent offers of support were made by B&W but no single offer was ever followed up, or put into action. B&W led the competition and photographers to believe that numerous promotions would take place. The competition and photographers received “urgent” requests to supply hi resolution images for the following:
1) Photographers prints to be displayed on “massive hoardings” inside the St James Centre
2) Photographers images to be displayed as giant window transfers
3) All photographers images to be displayed on “massive screens” outside the St James Centre
4) Photographers images to be printed on “thousands” of paper menus
5) Photographers images to be displayed on stairs leading to the venue
6) Photographers images to be used as giant backdrops for selfies
None of the above were ever seen in public or known to have been implemented.
This statement is made in the public interest.