Fairs and Markets

EVER-resilient Essex organiser Robert Bailey is back on the acquisitions trail, if in a modest way. He has just taken over fellow Essex organiser Patricia Cox’s twice-yearly Tattersalls fairs at Newmarket, Suffolk and will run the next fixture from September 13 to 15.

A HARD act to follow will be Elizabeth Fell who after seven years running the whole show is leaving The Swan at Tetsworth, one of our most successful and innovative antiques centres.

FIVE of the six dealers who have left Chelsea antiques centre Bourbon-Hanby are consulting lawyers over whether their leases have been honoured.

JUST as the Office of Fair Trading seemed to be making progress over the misleading marketing tactics of the Barcelona-based European City Guide, another similar operation has struck again.

A CAMPAIGN to change the law could force the closure of antiques fairs that are currently allowed to operate without planning permission. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) is targeting its initiatives at car boot sales, motorsport meets and clay pigeon shooting, but the proposed change would embrace antiques events too.

BIRMINGHAM-based Centre Exhibitions, headed by Fran Foster, launch a new series of fairs from October 18-20 when the first Ceramics For Everyone Fair is held at The Grandstand, Worcester Racecourse.

BRITAIN’s leading furniture maker and designer John Makepeace calls this exotic and exquisitely crafted one-off piece of furniture English Fruits, and the circular table will be the centrepiece of a special Makepeace feature at the entrance of the Daily Telegraph/House and Garden Fair at Olympia from June 27 to 30.

TOP people’s favourite antiques event The Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair has been running since 1934, the age of Deco, and as an established part of the London Season is not the place that comes to mind when thinking of something for the decorators.

JOINING the illustrious roster of exhibitors at this month’s Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, which runs at Mayfair’s Grosvenor House Hotel from June 12 to 18, is the distinguished arms and armour dealer Peter Finer.

LONDON antiques centre Antiquarius say they are delighted to have the opportunity to sign up some of the dealers who have quit nearby Bourbon-Hanby in a disagreement over rent rises and lease terms.

Pennyfarthing Fairs cancelled their antiques fair at The Wyllyotts Centre, Potters Bar on Sunday, May 12 following the train crash in the town on Friday May 10 in which seven people died.

PLANS to give a London antiques centre a makeover – turning it into an arcade for interior decorators – has meant six dealers getting their marching orders... or so it seems.

GOOD news for all those British dealers who are anxious to attend a fair in New York sooner rather than later. Back in February, David Lester, head of International Fine Art Expositions, organisers of the acclaimed Palm Beach fair, announced he was planning an autumn fair at Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

FOLLOWING the cancellation of Salon de Mars 2002 owing to a dispute with the venue over a clash with other fixtures, its organisers Association ARES have dissolved and Salon de Mars is no more.

A WEEK ago it was announced that Oxfordshire dealer Edward Reilly-Collins of Hallidays was negotiating a deal to launch a new fair in Chicago with the US-based Stella Show Management.

RESPONDING to the rise and rise of interest in 20th century design Le Salon du XXeme Siecle will be launched in Paris from June 6 to 9 at Le Carrousel du Louvre.

USA: New York may boast the nation’s glitziest antiques fairs in terms of snaring top-tier collectors and socialites, but The 41st Philadelphia Antiques Show tops virtually every single fair when it comes to choice Americana and folk art. Even dealers who participate in New York’s Winter Antiques Show praise the Pennsylvania event. “It’s the best show for Americana,” says Edwin Hild of Olde Hope Antiques based in nearby Bucks County.

WEST London’s The Old Cinema in Chiswick, billed by its owner Martin Hanness as the capital’s only antiques department store, is undergoing a major makeover not far off a century after it was opened in 1910.

EUROPE’s leading showground events organisers DMG Antiques Fairs have been oiling the wheels of their fixtures, and it is much appreciated at Ardingly where their fair has been going from strength to strength.

HAMPSHIRE organiser Valerie Sleeney of Grandma’s Attic Fairs holds the first staging of the year of her flagship event at The Pavilion Ballroom, Bournemouth on April 27 and 28.