Regional Fairs

PRESTIGE Ceramic Fairs have a new and attractive venue; in Kent at the 16th century Sutton Valence School which is set in 100 acres of grounds in the Weald of Kent, near Maidstone.

FLORIDA-based art world entrepreneur David Lester has put back the launch of SeaFair, his fine art yacht, from June to September.

THE Buxton Antiques Fair has been running for 43 years, which must make it one of the UK’s longest established dateline fairs.

“WE’VE got 1700 exhibitors at our March fair at the East of England Showground and we’ve been fully booked for six weeks now, with 1100 stallholders inside three large halls – including the Cambridge Suite with fine quality pieces – and marquees, and 600 dealers outside,” said Chris Hart of Bob Evans Fairs , the organiser of the twice-yearly Peterborough Festival of Antiques.

FOR the third successive year, dealers from the UK’s two major antiquarian bookselling organisations, ABA and PBFA have combined forces at the Edinburgh Book Fair which this year takes place on March 23 and 24 in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms.

SILKS from China, carpets from Persia, cottons, shawls and kilims from India, Euopean embroidery and lace, antique buttons and bows – some of these fine textiles, fabrics and accessories are now an essential part of any vintage fashion fair.

BELGIAN art dealer Maximin Berko is the driving force behind the Shanghai Fine Jewellery and Art Fair which will be launched at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre from October 13 to 21 this year.

ON Friday and Saturday, February 23 and 24, the Royal Bath and West Showground at Shepton Mallet will host the largest postcard, tradecard, postal history and ephemera fair in the UK.

MISSING Book Fairs, named after the fairs’ eponymous organiser, Chris Missing, are moving one of their six events from one stately home to another.

THERE’S a fairs reshuffle in the medieval town of Rye in East Sussex.

JUDITH Lidell is celebrating the success of her first vintage fashion fair on her home patch of Newcastle-on-Tyne on Sunday November 19.

ANDY Briggs of Fat Cat Fairs has added Woodstock Antiques Fairs to his other three fairs. However, for the next six months at least the name will not change and it will not be incorporated into Fat Cat’s/Silhouette Fairs’ other events at Abingdon, Burford and Lechlade.

ALLEN Lewis Fairs will not be continuing to organise their antiques fairs held biannually at Portmeirion Town Hall in March and November.

FOUNDED in 1893, Malvern Girls College in Great Malvern, Worcestershire was housed in a building that was once a grand hotel in the town’s heyday as a spa.

DMG Antiques Fairs have sold the two Malvern fairs as part of their widespread revamp.

DISCOVERY Real Time are filming at Take Five’s Art Nouveau/Deco Fair at Woking on Sunday, October 29 for their 10-part Real Deal series which focuses on two dealers selling their pieces.

VINTAGE fashion fair organiser Edwin Dyson has banned the sale of fur at his events.

“THE Shelley Group has only one public fair each year and this is its 20th staging since the group was organised back in 1986. This must be a pretty good record for a collectors’ group,” says the group’s Martin Kent.

SOON after setting up on Friday morning a few weeks ago at Shepton Mallet a flash flood swept through the Edmund Rack building leaving stallholders hastily packing up again and huddling by the entrance.

JAY Fairs’ Joy O’Meara is holding her Winter Antiques and Collectors’ Fleamarket at Didcot Civic Hall, Didcot, Oxfordshire on Sunday October 8.