Hartford, Connecticut

Everyone hates changes to a well-established antiques show. Change a location, fiddle with opening hours, swap weekends, and exhibitors and customers alike scream at the promoter. Sometimes, however, those changes are forced.

A conflict in booking at the Connecticut Expo Center in Hartford led Forbes and Turner to move their annual Connecticut Spring Antiques Show from the third weekend in March, which prevailed during 2000-03, to the second weekend, March 12 and 13, this year. The change in dates meant that a few prior exhibitors had other obligations, and it did expose the event to the weather-related problems possible in early March.

Turner replaced those exhibitors who had conflicting schedule problems with a diverse group of newcomers and managed to fill the Expo Center with 69 exhibitors, who also enjoyed the luxury of wider aisles. A foot of snow fell on New England March 12th and 13th, but it appeared to have little effect on show attendance. The opening hours on Saturday were busier than many expected. Those who came appeared to have come determined to buy antiques, not price shop or browse.

The change seemed to work to the benefit of all. Several exhibitors said their sales were definitely up. For some, they were way up.

Veteran show dealer Pam Boynton said she and daughter Martha had "quite good shows, surprisingly, and the action on Sunday really surprised us. We had a lot of dealers come in on Sunday afternoon, and they were buying, not just looking."

Another veteran exhibitor on the Hartford show circuit had equally good news to share. Stephen Corrigan of Vermont’s Stephen-Douglas Antiques, said, "It was our best Hartford ever, really amazing, and an awful lot of the action came on Sunday. The ‘be-backers’ really came back."

Linda Turner expanded on that. "A lot of New England got buried on Saturday, so they made a special effort to get here on Sunday. I was very surprised by how strong the gate was on that day. It was just amazing.

"And they bought too. A number of dealers told me how surprised they were with the strong sales. Bradford Trust did super, as did Doug Constant, and Peter Eaton—he sold a major Wethersfield highboy just ten minutes before his lecture started."

That was something new at a Forbes and Turner show: lectures by exhibitors on Sunday, the second day of the show. "There were about forty for Joan Brownstein’s lecture ["Folk Art Portraiture"], seventy-five for Peter Eaton’s ["The Regional Characteristics of New England Furniture"], and we had a crowd for Joe Namnoun’s lecture too ["The History of Heriz and Serapi Carpets"]," Turner explained. She said they would do it again at the fall shows.