Contemporary Arts Fair Discover:Gather:Give #Cafdgg 2021

After our contemporary arts event Discover Gather Give I put aside a few weeks for reflections, review and assessment, listening to the comments made by visitors, artists and volunteers and how I felt the event went.

It was the first actual live event after my husband had died last year during the Covid lockdown and he was an incredible support both mentally and physically in putting the event together. I really was not sure how I was going to feel about doing the event without him, however I cannot shout loudly enough my thanks for the support both expected and unexpected from family, friends and our marvellous exhibitors; I am truly grateful and touched by your kindness.

It was a grand weekend, with our exhibitors really pulling out all the stops to make the event visually sumptuous, elegant and a joy for visitors to buy at every exhibition space.

The Private View had a solid number of visitors enjoying the WILD EVE  https://www.wild-eve.com/drink-the-wild  long drink with the best sourdough bakery in the area making our delicious food https://www.morbakery.co.uk  and even though it was Bonfire Night near two hundred people joined us over our very jolly evening with a number of sales taking place.

Over the weekend there was a constant flow of visitors milling around. I was at the door hand sanitising visitors as they entered and chatted to many as they left the beautiful town hall with bags and packages of all sizes commenting ‘I’m so glad you are back’, ‘I’ve been waiting to buy from Claire Henley’ and ‘We love coming to see the artists as they are a really good standard of work’, ‘It is great to see so many quality artists together’, plus many more positive comments and welcome back’s!

I realised that our visitors had really missed our high quality live event as there is nothing like talking to an artist who shares their enthusiasm and passion for their artwork, to talk through commissioning a piece of work from them or buying a card to remind themselves about the artist – thank you for your support of our event and especially of our inspiring artists.

I will be putting on our next #Cafdgg over the weekend of November 18th to 20th 2022 at the Town Hall, so do pop it in your diary now