"The forthcoming edition of Art Basel Paris (24-26 October) will allow participating galleries to invite a select number of guests to tour the fair the day before its First Choice VIP opening on Wednesday 22 October. The new time slot, titled Avant Première, is on Tuesday 21 October between 3pm to 7pm. It aligns the schedule of the Paris fair closer to that of Art Basel's flagship event in Switzerland, which opens to First Choice VIPs on the Tuesday of the fair week."
"The move appears to address a dilemma facing many fairs: lower attendance by core clients, i.e. established collectors that will reliably spend large sums on art, but greater attendance by more casual fair-goers. Last year's Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting included a study sampling 1,400 Art Basel VIPs, which found that this group attended an average of five fairs a year, down from eight in 2019. Meanwhile, respondents to the wider survey attended more fairs on average than before the pandemic."
Art Basel Paris will introduce an Avant-Première preview on Tuesday 21 October from 3pm to 7pm, allowing participating galleries to invite selected clients to tour the fair a day before the First Choice VIP opening. Galleries will nominate clients regardless of VIP status and will receive a set number of invitations to distribute at their discretion. The slot aims to provide an intimate, privileged environment for discovery, dialogue, and focused business engagement. The change responds to declining attendance among core collectors and survey findings that VIPs are attending fewer fairs, often citing overcrowding.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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