With the demise of the Grosvenor House fair and the summer Olympia sufficiently moribund that its promotion and management has recently changed hands, one wonders why, with the trade, shall we say, less than robust, we now have at least two additional fairs taking advantage of the London season. Any void there was sans Grosvenor House was at best only perceived, surely.
As an inveterate fair participant, and formerly an inveterate fair goer, that fairs are on hard times I find distressing. As my loyal cadre of readers will gather, we always enjoy our fairs participation, as it allows us to see clients with whom we may only have contact at a fair, and colleagues, likewise. We have always told ourselves, in locations where our business is strong, if we didn’t participate in a local fair, we would then in the alternative have a trunk show. Moreover, even when we do not sell well at a show, we considered it at least good promotion, allowing us to stay in front of good clients and, given that not all clients buy all the time, acquire a few collector and design contacts that, in the fullness of time, may make a purchase.
With all that, our best promotional tool remains our own gallery, with perforce the largest selection of our stock of English antiques and artwork, but nothing can substitute for the fairs as a gallery adjunct.
Or can it? One immediately assumes that antiques and art fairs have profoundly hit the skids just at this time, another casualty of the global economic meltdown. I would frankly argue that fairs generally were struggling well before the excreta hit the economic fan last year, with our own show experience other the course of the last five years very spotty. As I mentioned, we had always solaced ourselves that poor at-show performance would always pay off as good promotion, and, given our short tenure in the antiques trade, we had nothing to compare to.
What was short is now, some would say, venerable, as is the thing that I believe has probably had as great an impact on antiques fairs as anything- the internet. While we have assumed that shopping a fair provides a great one stop experience for collectors and designers who are seeking a disparate, albeit of a similar high quality, class of goods- paintings and furniture and bibelots- browsing the internet provides the same opportunity, and one doesn’t have to shave, or put clothes on, for that matter. Of course, our material is essentially tactile so those that browse our website will always come in for a look before they buy. The linkage between our gallery and the internet is strong, with actual and virtual galleries easily accessible. While we are open literally all the time, a fair is only an annual event.
Are the fairs, then, going the way of the three-cornered hat? Not if Chappell & McCullar can help it. Before we begin to hear ‘Messiah complex’, my modest suggestions tomorrow…