Art fairs are all the rage around the world, and growing rapidly.

As galleries continue to struggle to maintain their presence and evolve in an ever frenzied social media world, art fairs everywhere fill the growing hole left behind.

For some emerging artists art fairs offer the most effective way to have their work seen in public. Having a great web and social media presence is still critically important, but there is significant value in displaying your work in a space where art buyers can view it up close. Your work  also lives on in the art fairs catalog.

Art! Vancouver is a young and growing fair that gets better every year. It’s still not in the same league as other larger cities that have been doing it for a lot longer, but this year the fair had a great selection of artists and galleries. The diversity in types of art was impressive. The only criticism I heard from a few artists is that they had hoped for more traffic. Some sold work, but they felt they would have sold considerably more with higher traffic, and I have to agree. When I attended it was fairly sparse.

Art fair strategies need to be carefully planned when you consider a booth is in the $2,000 range, and you also need to invest in a substantial portfolio to display, plus there are several miscellaneous costs. At the end of the day a four day show could be amount to $5,000 investment, so it’s important to have a heavy flow of visitors walking by your booth in order to justify the expense.

I had a chance to speak with a few artists who displayed at Art! Vancouver.

Some sold work, like iRMA immediately below, while others were not so fortunate.