How to Plan and Structure a Creative Workshop People Will Love

One of the questions people often have when they're planning their first creative workshop is: what am I actually going to do for two hours?

If you've never taught before, the idea of standing in front of a room full of people can feel quite daunting. The good news is that you absolutely don't need to be a qualified teacher to run a brilliant creative workshop. I happen to be a former primary school teacher, and there are definitely skills from teaching that I've carried into running workshops. But I've also learned that teaching adults how to make something is very different from teaching a lesson in a classroom.

The biggest thing to remember is that people haven't paid to listen to you talk for two hours. They've come to have a go.

How should you structure a creative workshop?

You don't need a complicated lesson plan.

For most creative workshops, a really simple structure works perfectly:

1. Welcome everyone and explain what you're going to make

Give people a chance to arrive, get settled, grab a drink and have a look at the materials in front of them. Introduce yourself briefly and show them what they'll be making. And I really do mean briefly. They don't need your entire life story before they're allowed to pick up a paintbrush.

2. Demonstrate the first step

Show everyone enough to get started. Try not to demonstrate the entire process at once. If there are ten different stages, by the time your customers actually start making, they'll probably have forgotten stage three anyway. Break your workshop into manageable sections. Demonstrate one part, let everyone have a go, then bring them back together when they're ready for the next step.

3. Let them make

This should be the biggest part of your workshop. Once everyone knows what they're doing, move around the room. Answer questions, check in with people and help anyone who's struggling. You don't need to fill every second with teaching. Give people space to experiment, chat and enjoy themselves.

4. Bring everyone back together when you need to

If there's another technique or stage to demonstrate, get everyone's attention again, show them what to do and then let them carry on. You might repeat this a few times depending on what you're teaching.

5. Give people time to finish

Don't plan your workshop so tightly that everyone is desperately trying to finish in the final five minutes. People work at very different speeds. Build some breathing room into your timings so there's space for questions, mistakes and the inevitable person who needs to undo something and start that bit again.

6. Finish properly

Leave a few minutes at the end to admire what everyone's made, take photographs and explain anything they need to know about looking after or finishing their piece at home. It's also a lovely opportunity to tell people about any other workshops you're running if it feels appropriate.

How much should you talk during a creative workshop?

Less than you probably think. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people worrying about when they first start teaching. You don't need to prepare enough material to "fill" two hours. The activity fills the time.

Your job is to give people enough information to feel confident having a go, then be there when they need you. Long demonstrations can actually make people switch off. They want to get their hands on the materials and start making. If you've been talking for 20 minutes and nobody has touched anything yet, you've probably been talking for too long.

You don't need to be a qualified teacher

Knowing how to teach certainly helps, but a teaching qualification isn't what makes someone brilliant at running workshops. You need to know your craft well enough to explain it simply. You need patience. You need to be able to notice when someone is struggling. And you need to remember that the person sitting in front of you might never have done anything like this before.

Things that feel completely obvious to you might not be obvious to a beginner. That's okay. Your job isn't to show everyone how good you are at the skill. It's to help them feel like they can do it too.

Think about the atmosphere, not just the activity

A good creative workshop isn't only about what people make. It's about how they feel while they're there.

I always think about the atmosphere I want to create before people arrive. Music makes a huge difference. A completely silent room can feel intimidating, particularly at the beginning when people don't know each other yet. Put some background music on and suddenly those little gaps in conversation don't feel awkward.

Refreshments help too. Tea, coffee and cake give people something to do when they arrive and create natural opportunities for conversation.

You want your workshop to feel welcoming and relaxed rather than like everyone has accidentally walked into a classroom.

Remember that adults learn differently too

Some people will watch your demonstration once and immediately understand. Others will need you to show them again. Some will want to follow your example exactly. Others will immediately start experimenting and doing their own thing. Let them.

Unless there's a safety issue or they're about to do something that will completely ruin their piece, you don't need everyone to make something exactly the way you would. One of the loveliest parts of creative workshops is seeing how differently people interpret the same idea.

Do a practice run before your first workshop

Before you teach your workshop for the first time, run through the whole thing yourself. Time how long each stage takes. Think about which bits might need a demonstration and which instructions might be confusing. Even better, test it on a friend who hasn't done it before.

You'll quickly discover all the things you've forgotten to explain because they've become second nature to you. And then expect your real workshop to take longer. It almost always does.

Your customers won't remember whether your timings were perfect

They probably won't notice that you forgot to say something in your introduction or that your second demonstration happened ten minutes later than you'd planned. They'll remember whether they felt welcome. They'll remember whether they enjoyed themselves. They'll remember the conversations they had, the thing they made and that little moment of pride when they realised they'd actually done it. That's what you're trying to create.

You don't need to recreate a classroom or deliver a perfect lesson. Give people a warm welcome, show them what they need to know and then give them plenty of time to actually enjoy being creative.

Thinking about running your first creative workshop?

If you've got a workshop idea but you're not quite sure how to turn it into something you can actually teach, that's exactly the sort of thing I can help you work through.

You can book a free 15 minute Virtual Cuppa and tell me about your idea. We'll have a chat about where you're at, what's holding you back and whether I'm the right person to help.