Fairs and Markets

SEVERE weather conditions have badly damaged the marquee which Antique Forum use for their six annual weekend fairs held at Trentham Gardens, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

The Detling Antiques and Collectors' Fair on February 27-28 will be the last held at the Kent County Showground by the current organisers. A new organiser is taking on the fair after International Antiques & Collectors' Fairs failed to agree new terms with the venue.

THE Berkeley Square Art & Antiques Fair announced last October by Paris-based Patrick Perrin and London-based Stéphane Custot is now no longer taking place this June.

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

THE luxury goods fair Masterpiece London has been granted planning permission for an inaugural event at the former Chelsea Barracks from June 24 to 29.

The London Coin Fair has been sold by its proprietors of over 30 years, Frances and Howard Simmons, to Mike and Lu Vessid.

AMONG the first major casualties of the winter weather is IACF’s third fair at the RAF Swinderby site. With no permanent buildings at the airfield and the long-term forecast predicting the coldest winter for many years, the organisers have already announced the cancellation of the next fair scheduled for February 2-3.

THE recession continues to take a heavy toll on the New York fairs scene and the first casualty of the new year looks set to be the Haughtons' International Fine Art Fair.

COOPER Fairs, owned by Sue Ede, have acquired The Tatton Park Antiques Fair from Essex organiser Robert Bailey.

ATG have had exclusive access to the first names to sign contracts for Masterpiece, the grand new London fair planned for Chelsea Barracks, SW1, next summer.

THE Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) and Oxfam have come to an agreement in their dispute over how the charity is affecting the secondhand book market.

DEALERS in South London have cautiously welcomed Southwark Council’s proposal to relaunch Bermondsey Market, but remain sceptical as to whether funds will be made available to make a significant difference.

FOUNDED by Brian and Anna Haughton in 1982, the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar will from next year be incorporated into the organisers new event Art Antiques London.

DEVON County Antiques Fairs (DCAF) are pulling out of the Westpoint Exhibition Centre in Exeter because of costs and the size of the venue.

MORE than 100 dealers braved gales to be at Olympia at 9.30 on the morning of November 18 for a meeting called by Florida impresario David Lester. They were there to discuss the London International Fine Art Fair, the renamed June Olympia which he co-owns with Clarion but very much runs himself.

DEUTSCHE Bank have signed a five-year deal to sponsor ART HK, the Hong Kong art fair which launched in 2008.

LONDON-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton are first off the mark in announcing top names who have signed up for one of the numerous events vying for exhibitors in June 2010.

IN a bid to boost pre-Christmas trade at Friday's Bermondsey Antiques Market, Southwark Council have waived the usual stand charge of £30 and only the £10 stall rental charge for a 9 x 3ft stall will apply. This offer applies for November 20 only.

IF you’re looking for a painting that sums up the problems suffered by the contemporary art market over the last year, then this work by Peter Doig (b.1959) is a pretty good candidate.

THE first salvos in the battle between the showground fairs giants saw up to 4000 exhibitors head to Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire earlier this month.