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• Issue #222
• Article

By Alex Novak

Great venue, but few buyers at the LA event.

After three years Reed Exhibitions has finally pulled the plug on Paris Photo Los Angeles and canceled the planned launch of FIAC Los Angeles. The reason given was not surprising. According to Jean-Daniel Compain, Senior Vice President Culture, Luxury & Leisure Division at Reed Exhibitions France, "Unfortunately, we must concede that after three consecutive years trying to install Paris Photo in Los Angeles in a sustainable and lasting way—despite the abundance of collectors in Los Angeles and California that figure among the buyers regularly in attendance at international fairs—the level of sales during Paris Photo Los Angeles is not sufficient to support such a Fair and to offer our exhibitors the best conditions of return on their investment."

Or, in other words, none of the exhibitors were making enough sales to come close to their high expenses here—something we've been reporting for the last three years. When Paris Photo's new management team seemed to renew the expired three-year contract for the Universal Studios location for Paris Photo LA this past summer, we were astonished. You can read what we said last July here: http://www.iphotocentral.com/news/article-view.php/229/217/1431/0/0/10/archive.

Fortunately for Reed, the new team obviously did finally get the message that this show location just wasn't going to work for them in today's market. That's a positive sign for Paris Photo, which is a great franchise that was getting watered down with this Hollywood-style fair, where attendees focused more on being seen rather than buying.

You have to applaud the new team for "biting the bullet" and cancelling this dud of show. You also have to give the group credit for giving 20% back to its Paris exhibitors after the disastrous November events impacted those exhibitors (and Paris Photo itself). That was a magnanimous gesture. Paris Photo and Reed may finally be getting it right again.

Novak has over 48 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.