Skate’s Art Fairs Report, Summer 2015

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Q2 art fair attendance jumped by 8.8% and gallery participation increased by 1.4% according to Skate’s Art Fairs Report, Summer 2015. The report includes data on 15 events conducted in nine countries over the calendar Q2 2015.

The report found that during that period about 0.5 million art lovers visited 15 major art fairs tracked by Skate’s – a healthy 8.8% increase in visitor traffic compared with Q2 2014.

The report notes that the total number of exhibitors grew by 1.4% to 1,852, and while no fairs disclosed a decline in visitors, three shows have failed to publish their 2015 attendance numbers so far. One published identical numbers to those from 2014, it adds.

Four art fairs reported a fall in the number of attending galleries, with Art Cologne experiencing the largest drop (12 galleries, or 5.4% of the 2014 level). The biggest visitor increases were reported by Masterpiece in London, Frieze New York, and Liste Basel, a satellite fair of Art Basel.

“In short, art fairs keep strong attendance numbers (about 0.5m people visited 15 art fairs in Q2) and Art Basel in particular displayed notable growth with 6.5% visitors increase,” Skate’s told Private Art Investor. “Some signs of art fairs fatigue observed by Skate’s in the previous (Q1) report clearly remained as 27% of art fairs followed by Skate’s disclosed reduced number of attending galleries in Q2 (compared to a year earlier).

“That said, all of the major shows held in Q2 (Art Basel, Frieze New York and Art Cologne) were strong, reporting robust sales and growing attendance numbers.”

Picture credit: Andrew Moore/Creative Commons license.