Hali fair dropped

AFTER a decade, the pioneering Hali fair held every June at London’s Olympia has been axed.

The 2006 fair showcased some 70 specialist dealers in textiles, carpets and tribal art from 15 countries and it was the international dimension of the fair which has proved its downfall.

The Hali fair ran in tandem with, and with access to, Clarion’s Olympia Summer Fair and for many of the overseas exhibitors, who came from as far afield as Laos, Pakistan and Turkey, the costs of staying in London for a fortnight proved too much.

It was not so much the stand rents that the exhibitors could not afford but rather the day-to-day costs of staying in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

With few exceptions the Hali exhibitors were not high-end dealers with six-figure prices. They were modest dealers who could not sustain the costs which are now involved in showing on the international fairs circuit.

Joint owners Hali magazine and Clarion consulted current and potential exhibitors and with great reluctance decided to “suspend” the fair for 2007 in its present form.

The fair, which is the only quality fair in the UK dedicated to textiles and tribal art, was held for the ninth time at the West London exhibition complex from June 8 to 18, 2006.

It was launched as a rugs and carpets event, with a tribal art dimension successfully added a few years ago. Last year it was renamed Textiles and Tribal Art: The Hali Fair. Clarion became joint owners a couple of years ago.

Although both owners say they are committed to relaunching Hali, perhaps in a different format at a different venue with different dates, in antiques fairs history “suspended” events are never revived.

The fair was always critically well received and last year’s attendance was 5145 (just Hali tickets – not including the adjacent Olympia Summer Fair), 20 per cent up on 2005.

But the aisles never thronged and, although the fair did attract some younger buyers, the volume of sales was never as high as at comparable antiques fairs.

London does not have a highly developed textiles and tribal art culture and was very possibly the wrong city for such a specialist fair.

Without doubt, the UK-based exhibitors will miss Hali, but since the overseas representation was some 60 per cent of the total, the fair could never go ahead with just the home trade.

Naturally, Clarion say they will welcome any displaced textiles and tribal dealers into their 2007 Olympia Summer Fair.

By David Moss