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• Issue #274
• Article

Last year's 24.39 Classic Photography Fair (Paris).

This summer a new organization was founded, Vintage Photo Fairs Europe. It happened on the initiative of Barnabé Moinard, promoter of the 24.39 Classic Photography Fair (Paris), Mila Palm, Reinhold Mittersakschmöller and Stefan Fiedler, promoters of Vienna Vintage Photo Fair, Eric Bos Waaldijk, promoter of Dialogue Vintage Photography (Amsterdam) and Michael Diemar, editor-in-chief of the magazine The Classic.

Since then, two more fairs have joined the organization, Bloomsbury Photograph Fair (London) and Fiera di Senigallia (Senigallia, Italy).

Barnabé Moinard explained, "The growth of tabletop fairs in Europe in recent years has made the creation of this organization and its platform an absolute necessity. These independent fairs already operate and interact with one another: this organization and its platform will serve to unify the network, enabling more effective and impactful communication. Our ambition is to raise awareness about these fairs, spread knowledge about classic photography and hopefully inspire others to start tabletop fairs of their own."

The tabletop fairs attract both new and seasoned collectors, as well as curators from leading museums, but they fill important functions beyond commerce, as Barnabé Moinard pointed out: "The world of photography has increasingly moved online and the fairs are among the few opportunities for the community of classic photography to meet up in the physical world to share their passions and exchange information and ideas."

Barnabé Moinard continued, "The website (www.vintagephotofairseurope.com) is still quite basic. It has interviews with the promoters of the five fairs, a fair calendar, useful links, contact information and our social media details. Later in the year, we will add interviews with photography dealers and collectors, plus a section called "Collecting Matters", covering a wide range a topics and practical information about photographic processes, how to take care of a collection and much else."

The website also has a heading called "Starting a fair?" Barnabé Moinard continued, "We are inviting promoters of new tabletop fairs for classic photography to join as members, and it's also an invitation for those who are thinking about starting a fair to contact us if they need practical advice about choice of venues, promotion strategies, etc. As fair promoters, we have built up a lot of knowledge over the years and we are more than happy to share it."

The name Vintage Photo Fairs Europe makes it clear what the organization is about. But why just Europe? There are tabletop fairs elsewhere. Barnabé explained, "We decided that covering a larger geographical area would become too unwieldy. Vintage Photo Fairs Europe is a non-profit organization, there is no membership fee, and the work is carried out on a voluntary basis by our members. We would welcome if fair promoters in other parts of the world started their own organizations, and we would of course be happy to collaborate with them."