Peterborough - Festival of Antiques

Fri earlier this year was super hot and brought out a huge crowd to view the stalls (think it could have been Easter weekend?) The Sat was awful as a result. I am hoping this time it will be more balanced between the two days.

Also hoping you experienced Poole dealers have some sort of break down, a mental collapse followed by the need to offer Tony Morris and GS stoneware at £5 an item. I am not above begging and will happily sit in front of a stall sobbing like a 6 year old at a sweet counter if it helps get me a stunning deal

It won't help More likely a visit from security.

The most dealers ever and lots of really interesting stalls

Looking forward to Peterborough Festival of Antiques, Easter 2017. I'll be in the Main Arena again. I'll be bringing studio Poole/T.M. pieces as well as loads of other 'stuff'. Lets hope the weather stays as good as it is at the moment.

Its always a good fair. We will be there also in the main area. I am hoping it keeps up its standard of being about the best ceramics fair I go too.

yes it's not often I leave that fair empty handed and usually I can make a very good profit when I resell the pots bought there

next Friday 31st of September and Saturday 1st of October

and the weather is looking fine at the moment .

I will be there as normal. Bringing loads of pots with me and aim to buy a load more

Hope to see you in the Main Arena. Among the wide range of pieces I'm bringing are 6 x T.M. dishes and a large on-off G.S. lampbase in black clay.

see you there

Its gonna rain!

a REALLY big fair this time and no rain but mainly tat

Could not make it this year, Seems I didn't miss much.

you would have hated it

Seasoned sellers I know, took half their usual total.

Think it was a very mixed bag dealer wise. We did ok, about average with a slower than normal Sat.

I heard of some great results and some car crashes.

Three dealers I know spring to mind had best ever sales. They all put a lot of effort into buying for the event and had great stock. The ones I spoke to that did the worst treated it as another fair and brought the same pile of boxes plus what ever they had found since the last fair along.

I don't want to be rude but the buyers did turn out. They just didn't want to buy the items people had failed to sell several times on Ebay. For some of them this was the only fair they can get to. Other than this one it is all online for them. So they look for things they have not found before. I spent four months buying for the September fairs and think it highly likely I will do the same late December on wards for the March/April fairs. Having lots of fresh and interesting items pays off. Its been a great month for me. I can't say Peterborough was a great fair for us but not bad. I will settle for that.

I agree 100%.
Some dealers from Holland and Germany had brought new interesting stock that was bang on trend and were doing a roaring trade but most of the stalls were selling the same old stock (yawn)

I found it a strange one, Whilst I sold some good pieces I sold less of the cheaper pieces that usually go quickly even though I had tried to get the right kind of new stock. On Saturday I sold nothing until 1.00 and then did £400 in the next hour.

I think it was very poor outside dealer wise. The threat/forecast of rain for the entire event put off people stalling out. The ones that did looked like regular sellers with a large amount of previously picked through unexciting stock. Sat I always expected a slow start and just like the other time here it was dead Sat morning. It did pick up but not to previous levels.

What was different this time to previous events is that Thurs when the dealers set up was a lot busier than before. In the past you set up some time between 12-6, threw your covers over your stall and started trading the next morning to the public. This time we arrived an hour after they let the first stall holders in (buildings opened at 12) to find almost a fully set up trading fair with a lot of buyers running around. I think a lot of people sold the second tickets that came with each stall on and the trade buyers arrived early enough to take advantage. Rather than arrive an casually set up, It looked like I was late and I had a mad dash to set up.

On a side point my pet hate at events is dealers that think they can sneakily steal a hands width of a neighbours pitch and they won't notice. I arrived to find two of my three neighbours had fully set up. Between them had taken a foot of my 9 foot width in clamps and back boards to their own stands. Not normally a problem as most give you wiggle room. But these pitches are exact and you can't fit two tables that take up close to 9 foot in 8 foot of space. I was forced to make both take down/adjust stands so they no longer stole space from me. It doesn't go down well but people do need to understand simply by arriving first does not give you rights to the footage your neighbour has paid for and make it impossible for them to stall out (rant over).

Whatever were the negatives this time it is still a very good fair for both buyers and sellers and I am sure will continue to be.
As with Mordeep above I found that my next door stallholder with a double pitch had put tables from one end of their frontage to the other and when I asked how they would get in and out they said they would use the gap in my frontage. After I said that I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't use the space for display they had to re-arrange their tables - cheeky!

Only a few days to go to what should be a great fair for both buyers and sellers. I have a double stall in the Main Arena this time around so as well as an enhanced range of all things Poole I'll have lots of other items ranging from glassware to tapestry. Hope to see many of you there.

good job you said that, I would have missed it

looks like Friday will have good weather

Good weather????? Friday.
4C AT 9AM. Rain at lunchtime....
I do soooooo admire an optimist!