088 ART FAIRS


manipulate the crowds in subtle ways to get them to visit it all. Most important is the lighting: there is nothing worse than a good painting or a piece of sculpture badly lit. Te logistics can be an event manager’s nightmare. Te three-week timeframe to turn an empty space into one of the most extraordinary spectacles is a very specialised art form, a logistical jigsaw puzzle of epic proportions. Te time-related location of resources to meet user requirements is concerned with one specific event: a show, event logistics being quite unlike the ongoing activity of running a business. Te supply, movement, installation and removal of products


and services; balancing the exhibitors, their own designers, suppliers and designated contractors, the end client and the sponsors; trying to manage everyone in an extremely high-pressure environment inevitably means only a very few can cope. Everyone may well be working towards the same objective, to be ready to open on time, but that is easier to say than to deliver, especially when each team of contractors is making sure to stick to their own timetable. Scheduling and site planning are key, as are negotiations around delivery times, access points, equipment, safety plans and removal times – there is by definition no possibility of a dry run: this is a one-take wonder – every time.


On top of which there is the question of security, of paramount importance when the value of art on each individual stand can top several millions, in some cases hundreds of millions. It is a little like directing a play, scene by scene, and involves months of research, imagining and planning; weeks and weeks of building; and, above all, it requires a singular vision: to bring hundreds of presenters and thousands of attendees together on a certain date. It is the creation of an experience from the entrance to the flower arrangements, inventive lighting to gallery booths for tenants ranging from ancient to contemporary, and including antiques and jewellery. With the Netherlands


ALL IMAGES: TOM POSTMA DESIGN


RIGHT AND BELOW: MAARTEN WILLEMSTEIN


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