Last week Mark Saunders, managing director of Clarion Scotland and a former head of the Olympia Antiques Fairs, announced the first Fine Art & Antiques Show Scotland at the SECC from August 17 to 20. It will be vetted and datelined.
The aim in this first year is to attract 100 dealers with much attention paid to getting the right mix of disciplines. Eventually it is hoped to attract around 150 exhibitors. Potential exhibitors are promised a range of new innovations. One of the first is the creation of a pricing structure catering for those needing larger stands, in particular furniture specialists. The new scheme allows dealers to pay considerably less per square metre the more they take.
The new fair also has a novel organising structure. It will be put together and run from Scotland’s Glasgow offices with Scottish dealer Becca Gauldie acting as consultant show director, working three days a week from Clarion’s offices.
Becca Gauldie is a well-known face on the national fairs circuit and her first-hand experience and contacts are valuable. But she is not versed in the nuts and bolts of exhibition organising, a function Mr Saunders say can be carried out ably by an operational back-up team.
Glasgow gets new fair in old venue
CLARION Events Scotland are launching a new antiques fair at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow this summer. The announcement comes less than a year after Antiques For Everyone Glasgow fairs, also owned by Clarion and at the same venue, were discontinued.
