The Maine Antiques Digest has announced today that one of the nation’s premier antiques shows, the Ellis Memorial Show in Boston, has been cancelled for 2009. This year would have been the 49th anniversary of the show.
While further details on the Ellis show will be forthcoming, what we do know is that internationally all shows are struggling. Interestingly, gates for many shows have lately been quite good, but the art and antiques dealers overall have fared poorly in their own galleries and, despite fair attendance, have fared poorly at shows, too. Consequently, fewer and fewer have the money to risk, and show participation even in the best of times is chancy- significant at-show sales, what every dealer hopes for, have never, ever been a sure thing.. For anyone that is involved in a cultural nonprofit, that a good gate is insufficient to guarantee success should come as no surprise. I was speaking today to my friend Anita Shanahan, whose 50 year participation in the arts in California makes her rather an expert in these matters, and she told me that, on average, any given museum, philharmonic orchestra, virtually any non-profit that charges for admission, even with maximum paid attendance, would still realize a shortfall of 40% to 50% of its operating budget. Don’t get me wrong- all antiques dealers at a show like to see plenty of attendees- so much so that we often pay for free admission for our better prospective buyers. But the attendees are not really show supporters- what they pay for, whether it is admission to a concert, an art museum, or a charity antiques show, is cheap entertainment.
In the arts, of course, donations and corporate underwriting have traditionally been considered the strongest basis for financial support. Well, you can guess where underwriting has gone just lately. Further, underwriters now more than ever, if they are offering any tangible support at all, wish to make ‘in-kind’ donations- donations of the underwriter’s own products, rather than cash, so all charities, including charity antiques shows, are increasingly strapped. With the gate providing only a modest amount of revenue and underwriting evaporating, it is the dealers upon whose backs charity shows seek to make ends meet. It is the booth rental and catalog ads, both paid by the dealers in cash, which are these days key to a charity show’s financial success.
It’s interesting, in the day and age of internet marketing, that the better antiques shows continue to be wedded to show catalogs. It would seem that, with the mountains of catalogs lately left over after shows conclude, show organizers would realize that no one wants them, and, times being the way they are, it is particularly unfair of organizers to force show dealers to subsidize an unwanted catalog. Our good friends at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago have, it seems to me, the best solution, with the production of a simple, albeit well-produced brochure that substitutes for a catalog, listing the dealers, the show floor plan, and show amenities. And, the Merchandise Mart creates a virtual catalog online, with information, including graphics and live links to websites, provided by the dealers themselves.
What becomes apparent with the cancellation of the Ellis show is that it is not just the dealers’ presence, but their financial participation that constitutes the critical component that makes the difference between a show’s financial success and continued existence- or the show’s failure. It certainly is worth the time of any charity that plans to benefit from an antiques show to rethink how they can earn money at the show, and not plan to have the antiques dealers shoulder the financial burden.