Fairs and Markets

DECOREX, the UK’s most important exhibition for the interior design industry, has invited the Antiques & Audacity antiques fair to contribute to the next staging from September 25 to 28.

Never was an event more aptly named than Brian and Anna Haughton’s International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, the veteran ceramics fest which celebrated its 24th staging from June 16-19.

THE critically acclaimed Modern British loan exhibition, which has in recent years become the trademark of the Spring Olympia fair in London, has been abandoned and will be replaced by a sleeker, more contemporary show.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs are to return to a three-day Swinderby fair from July – only weeks after cutting it to two in a move they said stallholders welcomed.

BRUSSELS FAIR PREVIEW Over 100 dealers – half from abroad – will gather in Brussels from June 8-12.

RACEHORSE trainers may be used to a photo finish but a battle between two famous breeders went right to the wire on May 17 when Graham Budd (17.5% buyer’s premium) in association with Sotheby’s Olympia offered a selection of chattels from Ascot Racecourse.

Olympia event organisers acquire Birmingham shows THE antiques fairs organising arms at Olympia and Birmingham’s NEC have merged to form Clarion Events NEC Ltd.

EXPECT around 90 dealers, just a handful down on last year, in Hall 3 of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre for the sixth Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow fair from May 13 to 15.

ONCE again art proved its muscle over antiques with a frantic opening party on the evening of April 20 at Caroline Penman’s 10th annual Chelsea Art Fair, which continued at Chelsea Old Town Hall until the 24th.

CLARION events have appointed Freya Simms as a new director for the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fairs. She will be groomed to take over from Dan Gorton as the prime organiser and figurehead of the Olympia fairs.

The Paris Biennale is set to move from the Carrousel du Louvre back to the Grand Palais, its historic venue, for its next outing in 2006 after Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanöe unexpectedly vetoed plans for an underground car-park beneath the Palais that would have delayed its reopening until 2008 or 2009.

SOME changes at the long-standing firm of English period furniture specialists H.C. Baxter, for decades a familiar fixture on their stand at the Grosvenor House Fair.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs are to cut future Swinderby fairs from three days to two. From the next event in June the RAF Swinderby International Antiques and Collectors’ Fair will be open on the Friday Trade Day and on Saturday but will drop Sunday trading.

EXPECT around 3000 original works from 45 UK dealers at the 10th annual Chelsea Art Fair, organised by Caroline Penman and held from April 21 to 24 at Chelsea Old Town Hall in London’s King’s Road SW3.

The London Coin Fair (Frances & Howard Simmons) took place on February 5. Of the three of these fairs each year this one is not expected to be the most active. This time the reverse applied.

THE famous Bermondsey Square Antiques Market has traded in the square since 1948. This August, Southwark Council and developers Urban Catalyst will start work on the 18-month redevelopment of the square, during which it will be business as usual for the Friday antiques market. Or as near as possible given the immense upheaval for the traders.

The mixed feelings felt by the trade towards television boiled over last week as David Dickinson became involved in a very public altercation with a dealer at the spring NEC fair.

AS Easter approaches life is picking up apace on the provincial fairs scene.

“YOU have to wait until June at the earliest to assess just how Maastricht went,” said one veteran of the world’s top fair. Other exhibitors maintain you do not really know just how successful Maastricht was until a year after its close.

THE management team of IFAE’s Palm Beach shows is to take on new responsibilities as Lorenzo Rudolf takes on a new role in the organisation.