Posted By:
edacraThe truth is New York is a real nickle and dime town when it comes to collectibles. It's a suprisingly great flea market city, with a good cross section of merchandise, but there are very few upscale shows for a reason.
Same with auctions. I've watched auctioneers take some heavy dives in this town There was a furniture auction I witnessed where the dealers were buying back their own merchandise back because paying the buyers premium was better then the lowball closing bids. The first Grafitti art auction was poorly represented, in the mid 90's, and again major works were sold way below value because they attempted to make something exlusive, and upscale when there wasn't yet a market for it. Meanwhile, this city has some of the most established auction houses in it, and it's not like you can buy much at Sotheby's for $2.
So just make sure the approach doesn't alienate people. This town could really use a low key show with a large amount of quality dealers, in a tried and true venue like the 26th Street Armory (69th Regiment). The sports crowd doesn't really live in the city, they just work here...Manhattan is more of an arts & culture town..so you have to appeal to that cross over crowd* instead of target the luxury box crowd. That's my opinion.
*a good example of crossing over would be a recent book of art from Japanese menko cards that's for sale at Giant Robot stores, MOMA gift shops, and some downtown hipster shops too.