About ArtForecaster
ArtForecaster is a platform developed by ArtTactic.
Since 2014, ArtTactic Forecaster has been running weekly forecasting competitions based on lots coming up in international auctions. The Top 100 most active players provided an aggregate of 25,000 forecasts on individual fine art objects in the last 12 months alone.
The competitions are attracting art professionals from the auction industry, art advisors, art appraisers, dealers and collectors. In 2016, Robert Manley, currently Deputy Chairman and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art at Phillips won the Seasonal Competition – forecasting on more than 600 lots over a period of 12 months.
Apart from attracting professionals, the competitions have also become an important ‘boot-camp’ and talent development platform for rookie players and individuals just starting or about to embark on their career in the art world.
ArtTactic has developed a new set of online courses on artist market and fair value analysis to compliment the weekly forecasts and predictions.
How it Works
The quick guide on how to use ArtTactic Forecaster
Sign Up
Before you can join the competition, please register your details, including your player alias (this is your public player identity). Please also state your preferences for how we keep you updated about upcoming quizzes, your score and player ranking.
Pick an auction quiz
Browse our upcoming quizzes through 'Quizzes'. We have quizzes in a diverse range of collecting categories and mediums such as contemporary paintings and sculpture, photography, works on paper and prints, and will be adding more categories as the game evolves. Each quiz is linked to a live and real international auction event, and will be marked shortly after the auction results are published. Each auction quiz is also part of a competition running from a week to several weeks.
Answering quizzes
Each quiz has around 5 lots which you have to predict what you think it will sell for (hammer price without buyer's premium). Use the 'slider' to indicate which price bracket you think it will sell for. If you think it won't sell, choose the 'unsold' option. You will be rewarded for participation, but your score will be affected negatively if you are inactive. We will send you reminders about upcoming quizzes and quizzes that are about to end.
Results and scores
Your performance and results can be monitored through the 'My Profile' section. This section gives a current summary of your overall skills and competition rank across different categories and your past performance. You can also follow friends or your closest competitors and see how well they are doing.
You might be wondering what the skills scores mean (these are the numbers in brackets behind your player alias) and how they are calculated; we won't bore you with the details, but in short it does the following:
The aim of the forecaster score is to provide a measurement of the forecasting skill of each player, which is loosely related to the probability which we might assign to the player making a correct prediction. Like a probability, the score has a minimum possible value (0) and a maximum (100) and the actual level will fluctuate within this range over time as players make more forecasts. As a very rough guide, a player who consistently forecasts every price correctly will end up with a score approaching 100 and a player who consistently answers every question incorrectly will end up with a score approaching zero.
The scoring system assumes that players' performance may tend to be erratic over time, e.g. it is possible to get very lucky (or unlucky) on one or more lots which does not truly reflect long-term forecasting ability, therefore the scoring calculations also incorporate a smoothing adjustment which aims to make sure that your score is not dramatically influenced by temporary "spikes" in performance.
Finally a further important feature is that the system weights recent performance relatively highly, and if a player does not participate for one or more quizzes then the system will tend to decrease its confidence in the player's ability (and tend to reduce the player's score slightly). Therefore it is inadvisable for skilled players to stop playing and "rest on their laurels", since their score is not set in stone.
Skill Levels
As your overall score improves you will pass different skill levels. These are:
- Level 1: Enthusiast (above 5)
- Level 2: Junior Researcher (above 10)
- Level 3: Researcher (above 15)
- Level 4: Senior Researcher (above 20)
- Level 5: Junior Art Forecaster (above 25)
- Level 6: Art Forecaster (above 30)
- Level 7: Senior Art Forecaster (above 35)
- Level 8: Junior Art Market Analyst (above 40)
- Level 9: Art Market Analyst (above 45)
- Level 10: Senior Art Market Analyst (above 50)
- Level 11: Art Market Expert (above 55)
- Level 12: Art Market Veteran (above 60)
- Level 13: Art Market Guru (above 65)
- Level 14: Art Market Legend (above 70)
Each of these skill levels will entitle you to specific privileges, from free research report to being paid for your forecasting skills.
Tools and Resources
To help you improve your forecasts we have created a few simple tools that we believe are useful. For some of the quizzes we will provide you with previous auction records of similar lots (comparable transactions). You will also have access to previous quiz results for the artist. As the game evolves, we will start introducing tools and resources to help you improve your performance and ranking.
Follow
Spotted somebody that is making rapid progress or are just ahead of you in the ranking? Press the ‘Follow’ button on their profile page and you can track how they are doing vis-a-vis yourself. You can follow up to 6 other players.
Questions
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.