Artist Residency Application and Guest System

An Artist Residency Application System Built in Airtable

This artist residency application system case study is about a small nonprofit residency that hosts visiting artists from around the world. Artists come to make work, and the residency gives them a room, studio space, meals, and help getting to and from the property. When I came in, every part of that experience, from the first application to the thank-you note after an artist went home, was handled through separate forms, inboxes, and messages. I built the residency one Airtable base, which is a shared database that looks like a spreadsheet but connects related information together, so that an application turns into a stay and every step before and after that stay shows up on the day it is due.

Artist residency application system: results at a glance

• Service: Done-For-You Airtable Setup
• 80+ residency applications managed in the base as of October 2026
• 5 connected tables holding 117 fields: applicants, stays, rooms, guest forms, and years
• 8 timed stages, from 90 days before arrival to a feedback request 7 days after departure
• 11 saved views on the stays table, so each step has its own ready-made list
• 3 guest forms (before, during, and after the stay) that attach straight to the right visit
• 16 of the fields staff use most on a stay labeled in two languages

Service Provided

Done-For-You Airtable Setup

About the Organization

The residency is a nonprofit that welcomes artists for stays of one to four weeks. Artists apply with a statement about their practice and a proposal for what they want to work on while they are there, and the team reviews each application before offering a place. Some residents come through a fellowship, which means they take part in the same program but do not receive the final invoice that other guests pay.

A small local team runs the property day to day. They meet artists when they arrive, get rooms ready, plan meals around dietary needs, arrange rides to and from the property, and make sure every guest knows how to reach them. The team works in more than one language, so the information about each artist has to be easy for everyone to read.

The Problem

Every stay set off a long chain of small tasks. After an artist applied, someone had to review the application and decide, and an accepted artist then paid a deposit to hold their dates and received a final invoice later on. Closer to arrival, the team needed travel times, flight numbers, and a passport copy for everyone traveling, and they had to arrange a pickup. After the artist left, someone needed to follow up, ask for feedback, and find out whether that feedback could be shared publicly.

Each of those steps lived somewhere different. Applications came in one way, invoices were tracked another way, travel details arrived in messages, and feedback came in separately if it came in at all. Knowing which artist needed what, and when, depended on someone checking the calendar and counting backward from each arrival date by hand.

How I Approached It

When I mapped out the process, the first thing I noticed was that almost every task the team did was tied to a date they already had: the day an artist arrived or the day they left. The final payment, the travel information, the pre-arrival check-in, the departure plans, and the feedback request all happened a set number of days before or after one of those two dates. That meant nobody needed to schedule each task separately. The base only had to know when each artist was arriving and leaving, and it could work out everything else from there.

I also decided early on to keep the artist and the visit as two separate records, meaning two separate entries that are linked to each other. The artist entry holds who they are: their statement, portfolio, contact details, and emergency contact. The stay entry holds the specific visit: dates, rooms, travel plans, and invoices. Because one artist can be linked to more than one stay, an artist who comes back for a second residency shows up with their earlier visit right alongside the new one.

What I Built

An application form that gives reviewers the full picture

Artists apply through a form that asks for their contact details, an artist statement, and a residency proposal describing what they want to work on. They can share up to six portfolio links with a short description of each, and they choose how the team should look at their work: on their own website, through files they upload with the application, or in a shared folder. They also choose how long they want to stay, from one to four weeks, which month they would like to come, and whether they are applying for this year or next.

The form asks the practical questions up front so the team does not have to chase answers later. Artists choose from four kinds of workspace, ranging from a large work table in a private bedroom to a painting studio for messy work or a shared space indoors and outdoors. They note any dietary needs, such as vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or gluten-free, say whether they speak the local language, and give an emergency contact. If an application arrives some other way, staff can enter it by hand and tick a box so everyone knows it did not come through the form.

A clear path from application to booking

Every application has a status that moves from new, to accepted or denied, to booked once the deposit has been received, so reviewers can see at a glance which applications still need a decision. Once an artist is booked, their application is linked to a stay, and the stay is linked to the room or rooms they will use. The stay names itself from the artist and their arrival and departure dates, and if the travel dates are still missing, the name shows a warning asking the team to fill them in, which makes a stay without dates very hard to overlook.

Rooms have their own list with a status, so the team can see which rooms are assigned to which visits. When an artist brings someone with them, a checkbox on the stay flags the extra guest so the team knows to plan for one more person.

A timeline the base keeps for the team

This is the heart of the system. For every stay, the base works out the final payment due date, which is two months before the artist arrives, and keeps count of the days until arrival. From those dates, a set of saved lists, each one filtered to show only the stays that need one particular step right now, does the remembering for the team. The eight steps are:

• 90 days before arrival, the stay appears on the upcoming list so the team can start preparing.
• 67 days before arrival, it is time to prepare the payment link for the final invoice.
• 60 days before arrival, the final invoice goes out.
• 14 days before arrival, the artist gets travel details and the messaging app information they need to reach the team.
• 7 days before arrival, the artist completes a pre-arrival check-in with their travel times and passport copies.
• A few days after arrival, the team checks in to make sure the artist is settling in well.
• 2 days before departure, the team confirms departure details and the ride back.
• 7 days after departure, the artist receives a request for feedback.

The final invoice also has its own status, so anyone can see whether a stay still needs a payment link, has an invoice scheduled to send, is waiting on payment, has been paid, or is a fellowship stay with no invoice at all. Two more lists show current and past stays.

Forms that land on the right stay

Artists fill out three forms over the course of their visit: one before they arrive, one during the stay, and one after they leave. Each response is linked to the artist’s stay, so it shows up on that visit instead of sitting in a separate inbox. The pre-arrival form collects arrival and departure times, pickup and drop-off locations, flight numbers, and a passport copy for the artist and anyone traveling with them.

The post-stay form asks artists to rate five things on a scale of one to five stars: the cleanliness of the property, the friendliness of the staff, the check-in process, the reservation process, and how likely they are to recommend the residency to friends and family. It also asks how they heard about the residency and whether their review can be used in marketing, so the team knows exactly which kind words they have permission to share.

Arrival and departure times are written out in full in the residency’s own time zone, so nobody has to convert a flight time in their head. The artist’s emergency contact is pulled from their application onto the stay and combined into a single line, so the team can find it quickly if something goes wrong.

Built for a bilingual team

The people working at the property needed the details they use every day to make sense in their own language, so I labeled sixteen of the fields staff use most on a stay in both languages, including notes, rooms, arrival and departure times, pickup locations, flight numbers, and the emergency contact. The local team can open any stay and read what they need without translating as they go.

The Results

The residency now has one place where an application becomes a booking and a booking becomes a stay, and every stay carries its own timeline. Instead of counting backward from arrival dates, the team opens the list for the step they are working on and sees exactly which artists need it that day. Travel details, passports, and feedback arrive already attached to the right visit.

• Every application, decision, and booking is tracked in one base
• Each stay shows exactly which of the eight steps is due next, from invoicing to feedback
• Travel details, documents, and feedback attach to the right stay automatically
• Fellowship stays are flagged alongside paid stays, so both run through the same process
• The residency team runs it day to day without me

Related case studies and reading

• Case study: Live Wilder Studio: an Airtable dashboard fed by Dubsado
• Read: Airtable: A database in a spreadsheet
• Read: Signs Your Nonprofit Has Outgrown Its Spreadsheets

Running applications out of your inbox?

If your residency, program, or fellowship tracks applications and bookings across forms and email, I can build it into one Airtable system. See Done-For-You Airtable Setup or how I work with nonprofits.