The Antiques Roadshow Came To Dulwich Picture Gallery

Antonia Coonan, Head of Operations at Dulwich Picture Gallery, gives the background to the organisation of that amazing day.

Photos by Benedict Johnson

Friday 20th June. Knowing that the BBC Roadshow was coming to Dulwich Picture Gallery kept the Operations Department excited for weeks!

The preparations started months ago. I worked closely with the BBC Antiques Roadshow Directors and Producer, discussing permissions for filming of our masterpieces, all the various legal contracts, the positioning of cameras, intensity of lighting, various methods of marketing the gallery via the programme eg some of our interesting stories behind our pictures etc., ensuring exposure to the Kennington Kids: Raw Urban exhibition as well. There were also the practical issues to address, ranging from parking all the Scanner trucks to organising the Metropolitan Antiques Fraud Squad, the local police and St John’s Ambulance to be present on the day.

The week was particularly busy for the whole team. Everything started on Monday with an enormous marquee going up in the Gallery gardens with adjacent portaloos . On Wednesday the BBC came in to film the introduction for the Roadshow with Fiona Bruce. The BBC also arranged an introductory session for all the stewards who volunteered to help us during the day by the very energetic Tiggy, Events Manager of the BBC. On Thursday we all came in at the crack of dawn to finalise the last few things – putting up signs and encouraging the early birds to start the giant queue! By 8.30am there were 450 people in the queue on College Road, and Sueli, the Dulwich Picture Gallery cafe manager was serving coffee up and down the road!

It was a beautiful day and luckily for us, the weather held, and was really sunny and warm. We had several thousand visitors that day and despite lengthy queues, the whole crowd were happy and it felt like a big summer fete. The cornish ice cream went down well and both the Gallery cafe, which had been turned into self-service, and the food van were busy all day until early evening.

The whole team was rushing around helping people to the find the correct Expert queues and, most importantly allowing our hard-working staff and volunteers to have a break from time to time. I was constantly in and out of the Gallery watching with trepidation, the huge lights and cameras getting closer and closer to the pictures!!!! Well it seemed that way, but the BBC were very attentive and followed all our rules and procedures to the letter so no mishaps occurred – phew!!!

The whole day was great fun and ran really smoothly, mostly because of the enormous amount of work everybody put in beforehand , the positive attitude of everyone on the day and the good working relationship with the BBC Britstol team , who were a delight to work with. They are an amazingly organised and professional group of people.

It was so successful that the BBC was able to record two shows in the one day so the Gallery will feature on the TV twice – in the autumn 2008 or spring 2009. The programme is usually watched by 7 million viewers on a Sunday evening and then it is sold round the world – our Marketing Intern from Nabrasca says it is really popular with her family over there! Kate Knowles cleverly managed to get us a double page picture spread in the Evening Standard so that commuters could see the queues in the Gallery before the day was even over.

Saturday – all the marquees, tents, loos, stalls have gone and litter has been cleared. The café is back to its usual waiter service and peace has descended once again.

Monday, 23rd June – we are busy contacting everyone who won a prize in the Gallery raffle held during the Roadshow to raise money to conserve Van Dyck’s, Lady Venetia Digby (left) The prizes were donated by most of the Dulwich Village shops and we are very grateful for their support.

Many thanks to everyone who helped and supported us during the day – without all this help the day would not have been such a huge success!